Criss Cross

Tom Kakonis. St. Martin's Press, $4.99 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-312-92624-3

Mitchell Morse, a macho security guard and disillusioned ex-cop, is wooed by a lustful cashier and her estranged ex-con husband, who are plotting a Christmas Eve armored-car heist. ``Kakonis, a poet of raunch, brings to life the misfits and desperate dreamers who inhabit the shadowy side of `a vanilla milkshake town,' '' said PW. (Dec.)

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