Just Play Dead

For a screenwriter (Murder in the First), Gordon shows a welcome attention to voice. Narrator Dani Kahana is a Jewish cop in Hawaii's Maui County police department. A veteran of the Israeli army, he serves shtick with a lei and is prone to bouts of lyricism. And although he's a funny mix of Jewish, Hawaiian and noir-fiction personas, Gordon's attention to him comes, surprisingly, at the expense of plotting. Onetime Vegas hooker Nora Wolfe seduces an Adonis-like surfer dude named Chad into a plot to murder her sinister criminal husband Jack--who is broke but heavily insured. Hawaiian law doesn't require a body in a murder case, which makes things interesting for a while. Jack and Chad and Nora meet, in pairs or all three together, and talk and talk and talk. Jack wants to fake his murder and frame Chad and collect insurance. Nora wants to kill him for real and collect the insurance. Meanwhile Dani, who carries a torch for Nora and one as well for his partner, Joan Chan, watches and tells the story. And that's pretty much all there is. The prose is lavish and the metaphors colorful. But, despite a few twists near the conclusion, the plot is thin and the novel oozes from cute to cloying. (Nov.) FYI: The publisher trumpets that Just Play Dead will soon be a major motion picture. No studio is named, but Melanie Griffith is among the many people Gordon thanks in his acknowledgments.