Iron Shadows

Pounding on the heels of Blood Brothers, Barnes's 1996 fictionalized position statement on American racism, this non-stop erotic thriller seems tailored for the big screen, hormone-zapped adolescents and earsplitting wraparound sound. Cat Juvell, who's white, and Jax Carpenter, who's black, newly divorced but still best friends and private-eye partners, hire on to rescue wealthy heiress Kolla Sinclair from the Golden Sun, a cult led by enigmatic mixed-blood twin gurus Joy and Tomo Oshita. Once Jax and Cat plunge undercover into the titillating rites of the Golden Sun, Barnes doesn't overlook a single cliche of dark fantasy fiction. Before the final ectoplasmic chase, he peels off layer after layer of plot, alternating heavy-breathing sex therapy with heavy-handed flashbacks about the twins' darksome mission. Joy and Tomo, it seems, are two halves of a monstrous whole, post-Nagasaki mutations shaped by their revenge-crazed Japanese mother and a sexually abusive U.S. Marine stepfather into supernatural instruments of mass destruction. Barnes's occasional lapses into farce notwithstanding (""Take them to the yurt!""), this yarn packs a stinging punch. (Mar.)