The Fall-Down Artist

Lipinski debuts with a downbeat, droll tale which, marked by several wily and congenial turns, cannily mines the Pittsburgh area. Carroll Dorsey, 30-ish and the son of a rich and powerful politician, is a classic underachiever: an ex-college basketball star, ex-Army MP and ex-investigator for the county DA's office, he's now romancing a nurse, drinking a lot of Rolling Rock and investigating suspect cases for an insurance company. Meanwhile his father, intent on importing high technology to the area, is driving what's left of the city's old metal industry under in the process. Largely by accident, Carroll discovers some of his dad's moves; several of his latest assignments involve men injured just moments before factory closings, all of whom managed to hire cars from the same place and showed up on the podium of Movement Together, a militant organization intent on saving the factories. Dorsey is a classic hangdog shamus, but he is also, in his dogged way, a moralist, a fighter and maybe even a survivor. Pittsburgh and the Allegheny region offer rich veins of grubby politics and street-level sleuthing. (Apr.)