FIRE MASK

From a well-known writer of horror and suspense, a routine, murky thriller. Cliff Abbot is given to dreaming about girls, especially Candy Nagger. After a man who may have started a fire in a local hotel dies dramatically in his arms, Cliff's celebrity gives him an opener with Candy. Then, when a man in a white suit shoots at, then follows them, they are plunged into a mystery that eventually involves a rich, powerful couple's plot to prolong their lives via human sacrifice. Grant tries to spruce up this far-fetched tale with a Capulet-Montague relationship between Cliff's and Candy's parents and by providing an offbeat household to embarrass Cliff, but even a talking parrot, psychic father, and mysterious mummy in the basement don't make up for the ho-hum characters and unbelievable plot. (Fiction. 12+)