Death Games

Bill Donovan, head of the West Side major crimes unit, has an unusual problem to solve. Somebody is going around Manhattan shooting the likes of Frankie Rigili, Vincent Ciccia and other Mafiosi with an antique revolver that the police lab says is at least 100 years old. Moreover, the assassin appears to be a very pretty and patrician young woman. At first Donovan figures the hit lady must be a specialist hired by Timmons, a black thug. But then it turns out that the killer's backers have somehow managed to wiretap the New York Police Department and are tied in with the federal super-cop organizations. Unfazed, Donovan pushes his investigation to a bloody denouement, in which a Newport yachting club is trashed in the midst of the America's Cup. Jahn provides plenty of shoot-'em-up action, but the New York wise-guy dialogue sounds tinny to a native ear, and the plot device of 1940s-style Mafia hoods cavorting on today's Upper West Side is a disconcerting anachronism. The characters in the novel display quirks rather than real character. Lieutenant Donovan, for example, maintains a large snapping turtle in a bathtub. (September 28)