The Charlestown Connection

MacDonald deftly juggles all the plot balls he throws in the air in his solid thriller debut. Dermot Sparhawk, an aspiring pro football player whose career was derailed by a knee injury, tries to remain sober while running a food pantry in Boston's impoverished Charlestown neighborhood. Then his godfather, Jeepster Hennessey, who served with his father in Vietnam, stumbles into his workplace, hands him a key, and utters "Oswego" before expiring of a knife wound in the back. When Sparhawk begins asking around for information that could lead to justice for his dead friend, he draws the attention of an attractive FBI agent, Emma Hague, part of a terrorism task force, who believes there may be a link between Hennessey's murder and the threat of a major attack by Somali terrorists on liquid natural gas shipments. While a romance predictably develops between Sparhawk and Hague, the convincing if convoluted resolution and the book's dogged, flawed hero auger well for a successful series. (Aug.)