White Slave

Kim Mitchell is the 13-year-old star pitcher for her Foxhaven, Conn., baseball team. She is also the daughter of Tom Mitchell, a sharp, drugbusting D.A. who retired from New York's fast-paced, high-profile world of crime and justice at the peak of his career to move to the suburbs and enjoy the quiet life. But Kim is kidnapped and spends the next seven years on the West Indian island of Carib as the ""crazy white mistress'' of Wilson Kane, the ruthless, rich and twisted (he has a penchant for young girls) drug overlord who Mitchell almost brought down. Pseudonymous author Owen (The Eye of the Gods, Nightmare does well here with an assortment of peculiar characters bent on revenging or fulfilling vendettas and a plot that is well handled and interesting, if at times predictable. This thriller's real distinction, however, comes from its well-drawn tropical locations. Owen, a former UPI bureau chief in the Caribbean and Latin America, writes of jungles, shanties, squalor and corruption in this part of the world with confidence, creating arresting images and raising provocative questions. (May 29)