FULL COMMISSION

When New York p.r. hotshot Liz Wareham (Headhunt, 1991) stops her cab to defend a little old lady, Ada Fauer, from hired muscle Jerry Zeibach, she finds herself smack in the middle of a tenant- landlord brouhaha: Ada's building is part of self-made millionaire Alfred Stover's plans for his upscale Westover development, and the current residents are being frozen out—and worse. Moreover, pricey real-estate broker Margaret Rooney's former partner Ray has now joined up with Stover—and suddenly three of Margaret's clients have been menaced and another is the victim of a fatal dirty trick. Is Stover personally responsible or is one of Margaret's own agents sabotaging her? Liz focuses on Bobbie, a recovering gay alcoholic; Arlyne, a newly hired, overly aggressive ``broker to the stars''; and Arlyne's hapless friend Norris, whose commissions last year barely topped $19,000. While Liz withholds information from her homicide cop lover Ike, two more die, Bobbie goes on a bender, and apartment prices plummet in the depressed realty market. Liz and the killer eventually settle down for a cozy confrontation, ending in a plot-deflating suicide. An undemanding, amiable read, though amateur sleuth Wareham is a tad more naive than one would expect from a twice-divorced, 40- ish, Upper Westside New Yorker.