cover image Flawless Execution

Flawless Execution

John Logue. Ballantine Books, $2.95 (208pp) ISBN 978-0-345-32103-9

John Morris, a former Associated Press reporter, is working on an article for the Atlantic about George Hoagland, a sportscaster resembling Howard Cosell. While at a bar, Morris, companion Julia Sullivan and drinking buddy detective Walter Hatfield, see Hoagland electrocuted on TV; they immediately head for New York's Shea Stadium, where Hoagland died. Conveniently Hatfield is assigned to the case, and Morris, ever the tough reporter, is likewise on the murderer's trail. Bogged down with cliches and persistent attempts at snappy dialogue, the story yawns its way through New York and New Orleans. And when Logue tries for a Chandleresque touchan effete stamp dealer is called in to appraise a collection that may have belonged to FDRthe dealer makes the historically bizarre statement: ""My father sold him many stamps, before and after he was President.'' The execution of this mystery is hardly flawless. (April)