The White Zone

Someone is killing prominent California conservatives, all old buddies of ex-president Ronald Reagan, all of them involved decades ago in the McCarthy anti-communist witchhunt. Reagan may be the next to die. In solving the multiple murders, wisecracking Ralph (``Rat'') Trapp, a black New Orleans homicide cop, offers a wry perspective on Los Angeles that may remind some readers of Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop . The husband-wife Corrington team (he died in 1988) falters in this, Rat Trapp's fourth case ( A Civil Death , etc.), an unlikely scenario involving old leftists, the Spanish Civil War, a possible KGB rogue operation, divorce, old flames and a rock band called Desire Project. Despite acute observations on black-white relations, twists and turns galore and some shockeroos at the end, the story seems strained, as if written with a view toward recycling it as a film script. (Nov.)