TIGHTROPE

More cops vs. robbers from the author of Bleeding Hearts (1984)--as the L.A.P.D.'s ""Spaceman"" Kowalski and Blue Maguire again team up to track down some ruthless criminals, whose movements are traced in alternating chapters. The prime villain this time is Vietnam vet Lars ""Wolf"" Morgan, a psycho-mercenary who's determined to get his hands on a small fortune in diamonds that he almost stole years ago in Nam--even though the gems are now part of a big-time deal between old American drug-mobsters and even more lethal Asian drug-mobsters new to the area. So Wolf, hooking up with two old Nam buddies (one male prostitute, one acclaimed Australian photographer), goes all out in locating and grabbing the diamonds. . . and does some grisly killing along the way. And the body count eventually attracts the interest of the Kowalski/Maguire duo--with a four-way shoot-out (Wolf's gang, US hoods, Asian hoods, LAPD) as the inevitably bloody finale. Again, White makes some attempts at Wambaugh-style portraiture. But, as before, the effects are one-dimensional, and the result is sturdy, vigorous, slightly far-fetched crime-pulp.