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First novelist Hall begins at the end of his decidedly noir story, in some unnamed city in the Arizona desert, then flashes back through Denver and Barcelona and California before arriving at the beginning. The plot elements and varied settings don't really add up as a story, but the stark, relentless imagery captivates, as does Hall's portrait of Wilson, a fat, joint-smoking slob of a shamus who reads fancy books and cadges free drinks to while away his middle years on the way to a sad retirement. Elizabeth Daltry, a rich American traveling in Spain, falls in love with an idealistic revolutionary who turns out to be a money-grubbing informer controlled by a crooked cop. Blackmail and kidnapping drive the plot, which manages to generate the illusion of complexity without ever actually coming very close. Hall has obviously read his Jim Thompson very carefully; readers nostalgic for loosely constructed, existential on-the-road crime writing should freely indulge themselves here. ( Dec. )