Glitterbug

It must be among the hoariest conceits in fiction--a central character who has lost his memory and must recover his identity while forces he can neither recognize nor understand are intent upon destroying him. Kenrick ( Neon Tough ) pulls it off here, though, despite a highly unlikely plot, a series of scams that defy all reason and probability of success, and an annoying tendency to end chapters on a tone of ``Boy, if only I had known what was coming next.'' His direct style propels the reader from the moment the narrator opens his eyes in a Manhattan hospital room with total amnesia. He is told he is Jerry Parrish, a ``skip tracer'' who finds ``people who've walked away from their responsibilities.'' His obnoxious employer asks him to retrace his last assignment, locating a missing scientist. But that identity turns out to be false. A new employer says he is Jack Penrose, a government agent pursuing the same missing man. But that identity, too, eventually comes into question. All is finally resolved in a violent confrontation on a lake in upstate New York. Along the way, the narrator is given a pair of live-in girlfriends, a wife and a daughter (alive in one instance, dead in another). Totally unbelievable, this is nevertheless great fun. Film rights to Tri-Star Pictures. (Oct.)