THE RANSOM

Thoughtful, articulate ex-con Baker Wyatt, dreaming of the Big Score despite his budding romance with art director Vickie Travis, joins forces with car thief Tony Ramputti and pickpocket Hector Herraro to kidnap NY mobster Tko Benitez, who's one tough cookie. Why Tito? Because his family won't call in the FBI when he's snatched. Why a car thief and a pickpocket--and why does Baker set up the score by calling on a top diamond merchant? Ah, that would be telling--spoiling the biggest surprise of this tidy, zippy first novel. The other surprise: what goes wrong with the scheme. How Baker deals with disaster is no surprise at all, and a bit of a letdown. An entertaining How To Kidnap primer with no extra parts.