The Last Gambit

The focal crime comes so late in this rambling narrative that even Delman's pleasant, well-wrought characters can't rescue it. Hotheaded chess master Dmitri Kaganovich is in Philadelphia to compete in a tournament and, he hopes, to win back the heart of former lover, journalist Buddy Horowitz. Her cousin, homicide lieutenant Jacob Horowitz, is competing as an amateur in the same tournament. When Dmitri receives life-threatening messages, he turns for help to Jacob, who's left to untangle a complex lovers'pl knot and a murder, when Dmitri dies of a gunshot wound. At the same time, Jacob's wife Helen, a private investigator, is in Chicago, tracking down the kidnapped daughter of an old friend. Jacob relies on chess savvy in his sleuthing, but it's Helen who comes up with the actual, coincidental, solution. Lack of suspense and a thin plot defeat this effort from the author of The Liar's League. (Mar.)