The Ghost

From the author of Fear's Justice comes a blustering crime novel that reads a lot like a film treatment, swift and shallow. Ross Magellan is a sultry undercover New York cop intent on bringing down a corrupt judge. For hazy reasons, Ross is posing (somewhat unconvincingly) as a record company exec. The reader is required to take as a matter of faith that Ross, in addition to being a major babe, is a master of deception. She also has a mentally disturbed younger sister in an expensive medical facility. Harry Earles inhabits a place even deeper undercover--he works as a hidden backup to Ross's operation. He's the mystery part of Ross's investigative team, clever, cashew-chewing, opera-loving, meticulous, unassuming and violent. He's clearly obsessed with Ross, and he knows all about her sister. Harry's previous partners have also brought out his loving side, and most have either died or vanished. Olden's gimmick here is to have a cop stalking a cop. It's a solid ploy, and his prose moves quickly, in part because there's a lot of dialogue and the exposition is chipped into short paragraphs. But his characters are less than believable--even the dopiest reader will smell from the get-go that Harry's a bad egg--and the ongoing investigation stops and starts like a New York taxi. Much of the dialogue sounds more tired than sinister, too. Even including the title character, the most prominent ghost on display here is that of Olden's talent. (July)