The movie deftly explores that edge.

As the business goes into decline and the sisters start squabbling, Sara Lewis deftly explores big issues like loyalty, trust, sorrow and disappointment in sure, bright, effervescent prose.

In it, Ms. Whouley, 45, deftly explores the themes of independence, pride of place and loss and shows how the achievement of owning a home can be bittersweet for a single woman.

It is the aesthetic concept of the grid deftly exploring the language of minimalism and geometric abstraction that serves as the precious connecting his monumental work to his mentor Zahoor ul Akhlaq.

The author, who came to prominence as a practitioner of cyberpunk, finds new ground for his disciplined imagination in this novel, which deftly explores the social implications of life-prolonging medicine.

The author "deftly explores big issues . . . in sure, bright, effervescent prose," Ruth Coughlin wrote in these pages in 1996.

But as Dinky tentatively asks questions about Roxy's past, and later leaps to the belief that she has found her mother, Ms. Ryder deftly explores the teen-ager's desperate and fearful emotions.

Mr. Langton, Julian Bond, the film's screenwriter (who also wrote "The Shooting Party") and an outstandingly fine cast explore these distinctions deftly.

But Ann Hood's sly, incisive novel soon breaks free from this familiar ground, deftly exploring the strange rhythms of mourning, the unpredictable and unavoidable demands of sorrow.

The work deftly explores timbral contrast, juxtaposing, for instance, a hazy flute sound with sharp, aggressive percussion and various extended techniques on the piano.