Latin American Conspiracy

When the finance ministers of 18 Latin American countries decide to default on all loans from foreign countries, Europe and North America are thrown into financial panic. Only the brilliant and unselfish John Garland, developer of a crash-proof and powerful computer network, can prevent world economic collapse. In that aim, he is aided by the beautiful Lorelei Young, a bureaucrat with brains. The implementation of John's scheme would hurt only bankers and criminals, who band together to try to stymie the project. Van Geldern's vision of a cashless economy built upon barter and driven almost completely by online transactions is intriguing, if far-fetched, but in any case it's lost amidst the stick-figure characters, cardboard scenery and predictable plotting that fill his pages. His stiff prose style doesn't help, either. More tract than thriller, this novel, touted as the first volume of a ``conspiracy trilogy,'' neither convinces nor entertains. 50,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo. (Jan.)