New Lots

Good-guy cops, bad-guy dope dealers and wannabe-good-guy black Muslims fight over a Brooklyn housing project in Clarkson's snappy latest (after And Justice for One). Loyd Shaw, a trigger-happy cop on the outs with his superiors, is an inch from losing his pension. To redeem himself, he has to drive Archie Reynolds and his crack-dealing Blue Tops gang out of the New Lots projects. Shaw gets to handpick his own crew from among other rogue (or almost rogue) cops, each of whom seems tailor-made for yesterday's action movie: a Chinese-American computer hacker; a tough Italian-American bigot; a smart, sharpshooting Jewish homosexual; a quiet, by-the-books African American. Why New Lots? Maybe it's the violent retaliations from Rachman Abdul X and his security force. Or maybe it's Justine Burton, the police commissioner's daughter, whose women's shelter is a Blue Tops target. Despite the hackneyed premise and stereotyped characters, the charming love story between black Burton and white Shaw--and the violent battles for control of New Lots--will satisfy readers looking for a fast, if predictable, cop thriller with sympathetic leads. (Sept.)