White Cargo

Despite Woods's on-site research in Colombia, this suspense tale of cocaine trafficking and kidnapping only skims the surface of the seamy drug world it purports to investigate. Wendell (``Cat'') Catledge, a self-made electronics millionaire, is yachting off the South American coast with his family when a bloody act of piracy snatches away his ``heart-stoppingly beautiful'' teenage daughter Jinx and wife Katie. They are presumed dead, but weeks later Cat gets a brief phone call and recognizes Jinx's voice. His quest for his daughter, who is now a zombie enslaved by ``the Anaconda,'' a Colombian drug baron, involves Cat with assorted CIA and narc types and with Meg Greville, a freelance TV journalist who may be KGB. Woods (Deep Lie, Chiefs) serves up a slam-bang rescue as a fitting finale, but the suspense overall is so-so and the Latinos are either faceless or stereotypically sneaky. This one reads like a lukewarm episode of Miami Vice. (August)