NOT SLEEPING, JUST DEAD

Frisco gumshoe Joe Goodey made an ingratiating debut in Goodey's Last Stand (1975), and he now returns with his smart (but not smart-alecky) narrating voice intact; at his best, he's a latter-day Archie Goodwin, wise-cracking with an emphasis on the wise. Too bad, then, that he's stuck in a freeze-dried plot. This is the one about the young heiress (here, granddaughter of an insolvent tycoon) who dies mysteriously while in the clutches of a cult, here ""The Institute,"" an Esalenesty operation guru-ed by charming megalomaniac Hugo Fisher. While psychodramatic rituals and encounter sessions ensue, Goodey smirks, circulates, avoids seduction by a senior citizen's child-bride, and finally forces some confessions. You'll neither care nor be taken aback much when the truth squeezes out, but Goodey's unflappebly droll commentary just might con you into going the distance, a familiar distance, one more time.