Ecco Press. 244 pp. $24.95

Spencer's literary infatuation with prostitutes is quite different from the norm. There is no Sonya here, the stereotype of the sentimental hooker, famously created by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment. Instead, Spencer's working girls are hard-core realists, level-headed and wise in their assessment of human nature. In contrast, their johns are peevishly boyish, throwing tantrums and demanding to be pampered in both the ego and Eros department. Sigrid, the detached Icelandic hooker, laconically observes, "Life is nothing. We live, we die. We do, we don't do."

To back up a bit, Willing is about the chemistry between men and women - a subject of never-ending fascination to Spencer, whose novel Endless Love sold more than 2 million copies.

Willing is about women in all their guises: prostitutes, girlfriends, mothers, even real estate agents. And it's about Sigmund Freud's theory and observation about men's innate fear of disappointing women, and the insecurity and resentment that can ensue.

Avery, the main character of Willing, confesses, "I realized I could draw a map of my whole life with every point along the way another woman I had disappointed."

The novel's underlying big question is whether Avery will be able to make amends to the important women in his life.

The plot is classic, yet deceptively simple: A man goes on a journey to find himself, only to realize that what he was searching for was right in front of him all along. Avery Jankowsky, the introspective hero, is a 37-year-old writer from New York with a recent spate of troubles. He's at an all-time low: His earnings are meager, his girlfriend is cheating on him, and even his mother won't speak to him because he wrote an article revealing dirty family laundry.

Like a fairy godmother, Avery's Uncle Ezra swoops in at the right moment to wave a magic wand, offering Avery a change of pace and locale in the form of an all-expenses-paid, super-deluxe sex tour. Uncle Ezra's friend, Lincoln, who happens to owe him big time, is the owner of Fleming Tours, the ultimate high-roller's fantasy trip to bed the most beautiful buyable women in Iceland, Latvia, and Norway.

Before he can say "safe sex," Avery lands a book contract to write about Fleming Tours, and is on a private luxury jet bound for the waiting gals of Reykjavik.

Once there, Avery is matched up with Sigrid, the prostitute who drives him to her apartment in her "mango-colored Scana" that "smelled of vitamins and cigarette smoke." Avery gets performance anxiety. As he tries to buy time in more ways than one, his resulting small talk with Sigrid is black comedy of the highest order. Eventually the conversation turns serious, and he asks Sigrid something that's been on his mind, "the one question you were never supposed to ask a prostitute was the only really important question you could ask." She answers, "I like money. I like to have money. I very much want the things money can buy. And I don't like working a regular job. With this, I can have my own hours."

Avery is taken aback by her response. In the dance of mutual contempt that binds the prostitute and her customer, Avery is attracted to Sigrid and repelled by her at the same time. He suddenly realizes, "Everything was unbearable: the way I was living my life, the way I had always lived my life, the things I had failed to do, the things I had done, and what I was doing right now, the reason I was here."

Avery is soon on the plane again to visit the ladies of Latvia, with his deep-pocketed tour mates as company. On the journey, in spite of himself, he learns another life lesson, "This trip was not quite so gratis as Uncle Ezra had implied, but then again nothing in this sad and beautiful world comes to us free of charge, free of complications or obligations; even the milk we drink from our mother's breast comes with a bill that we are eventually meant to pay."

Avery's entanglement with prostitution poses more philosophical questions. Is it a vice? Is it a vehicle for redemption? In their heart of hearts, do men believe women rule the world?

In Spencer's illuminatingly wise and witty novel, Avery is fortunate enough to learn the kind of valuable lessons that even money can't buy.