Evil Time

While trying to end a bad marriage, write a novel and survive a TV writers' strike, Joe Brent saves a pretty young woman named Melissa from some L.A. punks. She admits to being on the run from a rich, creepy, abusive husband who's helping Las Vegas mobsters to skim profits. As Joe convinces her to go to the feds, they begin an affair, but after a visit from her husband's lawyer, Melissa bolts. Joe fends off a couple of cops who sniff around, then takes a writing job in Mexico, but discovers that it's a trap set by the son of a Mafia don. After killing his captors in order to escape, he finds himself fighting the mob and the cops at once. Back in L.A., Joe learns that Melissa has surfaced on her husband's yacht on the French Riviera, then hears that she has been arrested in Monte Carlo for his murder. The plot speeds along its twisting course like an express train packed full of interesting characters; only the contrived ending is a letdown. The pseudonymous Donoghue ( The S a n kov Confession ) recently identified himself as veteran thriller writer and Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt. (Hunt also has a book out under his own name this season. See review of Chinese Red above.) (Oct.)