Sunburn

Playing Boswell to a mafia don leads a small-time reporter into big-time trouble in Shames's third, and not up to par, Key West seriocomic thriller (after Florida Straits and Scavenger Reef). Godfather Vicente Delgatto, 76, has moved to Key West but is no more retired than Meyer Lansky was in Miami. Still, Vincente's bilious past is catching up to him, so he decides to write his autobiography, using as his ghostwriter Arty Magnus, a hack reporter for the Key West Sentinel. Though Vincente's half-Jewish younger son has urged him to write the book, his elder son, the full-Sicilian Gino Delgatto, hates the idea. When Gino, a money-mad egocentric and vulgarian, tries to muscle in on union vigorish in Miami and gets kidnapped by rival mobsters, he saves himself by spilling the secret about his father's book. Soon, ghostwriter Arty finds himself chased by mobsters who plan to kill him as a warning to Vincente to forget the book-and by the FBI, who want Arty's notes in order to nail the mob. Shames's ape-talking thugs and plaster-of-paris wiseguys are engaging on a sitcom level, but this tale, though sometimes quite funny, has neither the richness of word and depth of feeling of an Elmore Leonard nor the inspired wackiness of a Carl Hiaasen. Author tour. (Mar.)