Murder with a Twist

Max Bally, a New York City bartender and aspiring actor, has a reputation as ``someone to call in a pinch.'' So after the murder of stockbroker Peter Marotte and his girlfriend, Pat Brimmer, in a posh East Side apartment, Julie, the bar's waitress and Pat's roommate, asks him to nose around his retired cop friends for information. Soon Todd Manion, owner of a nearby bar, calls on Max with the same request--but for a different reason: he thinks he may be a suspect. Max balks, but Todd has contacts who can make it worth his while: they can offer him a contract for work in a made-for-television movie. Max learns that Peter had worked at Drexel but more recently was dealing in stocks of questionable value for a ``boiler room'' operation; meanwhile Pat was regularly running up and paying off bigger credit card bills than any waitress could afford. Soon the case is complicated by another death, and Max finds himself crossing paths with a second independent investigator as well as with a pair of unfriendly feds who want him to stick to mixing Mai Tais. The result is more complex than compelling, but Max does all right on his first case and may even improve with time. Slyke is the author of Swagtown. (Jan.)