PASS THE GRAVY

Donald Lam, once again ahead of Bertha Cool, latches on to a double disappearance and finds one wanted person dead and the other alive -- and suspected of the murder. Lam, convinced that the alcoholic Gage is innocent, tightens his search for the killer of Beckley, hunts for a vanished blonde hitchhiker, and, Gage's amnesia cleared, whips into a finish that uncovers a double play for a money motive. A fast spin.