Slipknot

Black (a pseudonym) initiates a mystery series with a novel about a sex-blackmail ring operating as an arms lobby in Washington, D.C. Based on ``actual events'' with fictional characters, the story is tantalizing but the suspense is vitiated by prose that reads like a clumsy translation. The lead characters are Hasan Javadi, a reporter who has fled his native Iran, and private eye/computer expert Patrick O'Neil. The two become fast friends as well as targets of international crooks as they investigate the murder of a woman journalist and others who threaten the dirty profits amassed by underhanded deals. Javadi sells a ``blockbuster story,'' but readers should be more interested in the one he hopes to place next: in 1980, a Pentagon officer states, Iran refused President Carter's secret offer of $50 million in non-lethal aid, to accept $1 billion in weapons from the new chief executive's men, if Iran would free the hostages only after Reagan's inauguration. (Jan.)