Big Time

Small-time Mafia hoods are closing in on Sal D'Amore, an even smaller-time piano player with a big voice, a short torso and a face no woman can't resist. Sal lost $180,000 he didn't have on a fixed horse race, and the pursuit is on, from New Orleans to Waukegan, Ill., to a ship on the North Atlantic to Rio to Hollywood to Cabo San Lucas. You might think an antihero would become short-winded, but not Sal. Besides falling in love with an heiress and writing a Grammy-winning song, he's energetic enough to engage in constantly irksome inner monologues (``How can there still be music in the world? How can anyone sing anymore?'') and to spout, along with his pals, a series of racist, misogynistic, homophobic and anti-Semitic remarks. The women in this novel need no body parts above the waist, and those below are compared to microphone components, horses and tumors. The sex scenes are minutely detailed but surprisingly unerotic. What's especially sad is that Montecino ( The Crosskiller ) has created riveting chase scenes and characters that we might want to know more about. But just when we're ready to care, the viciously bigoted jokes and observations reappear. Film rights to Cinergi Productions.(Aug.)