The legend of Zorro, the courageous masked caballero who slashes a "Z" with his sword after righting wrongs, has been told and retold in popular culture.

		"ZORRO" By Isabel Allende Harper Collins. ($25.95)

This swashbuckling hero has escaped close calls and dueled bad guys in comic books, TV shows and movies. In fact, a second Antonio Banderas "Zorro" movie is due out this fall. What more can be said about this action hero?

Plenty, it turns out, in the imaginative hands of Isabel Allende, the Chilean novelist known more for magical realism than cloak-and-dagger suspense.

Allende invents the youth of Diego de la Vega before he dons a black mask, turning him from an action figure into a true character.

This Zorro grows up in Southern California, the son of Alejandro, his aristocratic Spaniard father, and Toypurnia, his Shoshone warrior mother.

In the first chapter, Toypurnia, disguised as a man, leads a ferocious attack on a Spanish mission that Alejandro is defending.

Instead of killing the caramel-eyed warrior, Alejandro marries her and tries in vain to turn her into a Spanish lady with new clothes and a new name, Regina.

Even though his parents grow apart, Diego has an enchanted childhood filled with boyish pranks and acrobatic stunts with his "milk brother," Bernardo, an American Indian boy.

Diego grows up irrepressibly happy, but bothered by the terrible injustice dealt to the American Indians.

There's enough swordplay, salty sea adventures and romantic intrigue to keep you racing through this 392-page book. But Allende, author of serious books such as "The House of Spirits" and "Eva Luna," also imbues the action genre with a sense of humor and interesting characters.

The book is written in the voice of an anonymous narrator whose identity is not revealed until the end of the book. The wry commentary reveals the true character of our Zorro.

"He reached the age of fifteen with no great vices or virtues, except for a disproportionate love of justice, though whether that is a vice or virtue, I am not sure. ... I would add that another of his qualities is vanity, but that would be getting ahead of the story."

Zorro is a senorita-magnet, but he always falls for unattainable beauties. So when his father sends him to Spain for a formal education, he falls for the drop-dead gorgeous Juliana, the daughter of his father's old friend, overlooking the more interesting and plain Isabel.

The book has many clumsy coincidences, especially when it comes to his archenemy, Rafael Moncada. The evil Moncada, who pursues Juliana relentlessly, always turns up in our hero's path. And some of the characters, including Juliana, are flat and one-dimensional. This is not "The House of Spirits," but then again, it is not trying to be. It's a fresh, fun Zorro come to life.