Wildfire

Somebody wants to start vast wildfires in Yellowstone and Sequoia National Parks in this overblown environmental action thriller, a sequel to Goddard's Prey. Featured again is Special Agent Henry Lightstone, a Dirty Harry clone who, formerly undercover with the San Diego Police, now works for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department. Lightstone faces assorted adversaries, including ICER, the gang of international industrialists behind the bad guys in the earlier book; the Wildfire Conspiracy, which plans to torch the parks; and the ultraradical Earth-First! movement, which ICER means to destroy by setting it against the Wildfire Conspiracy. The Wildfire Conspiracy, hiring an assassin whose killing blows are too fast for the human eye to follow and whose double-barreled rifle has bores fit for cannon rounds, aims to take out Lightstone's crew as well. Goddard keeps a big stewpot boiling, even recycling the plot of his earlier novel in an overlong courtroom rehash. Can Lightstone stop ``the complete destruction-and ultimate resurrection-of the earth by fire,'' which Wildfire hopes to carry out? Resembling both a weapons catalogue and an oversized comic strip, the tale has a blow-'em-all-to-hell kind of liveliness. (Nov.)