RAFFLES

It took a certain gall to call this third-grade spin-off simply Raffles, especially since E. W. Hornung's far more inventive disciple, Barry Perowne, has avoided such presumption (most recently with the festive Raffles of the Albany). Fletcher's seven adventures take the Amateur Cracksman and his fawning accomplice, Bunny Manders, through all the expected hoops but with none of Perowne's delicious humor or Ragtime-y cameo appearances. Jewel thefts predominate--pearls from a bank, diamonds from Rosenthall the ""Diamond King,"" a tiara worn under a top hat--and the traps of Inspector Mackenzie (and some lethal Americans) can't stop the ""Prince of Professors"" from lifting enough loot to keep the comrades in liquor and cigarettes. The Victorian backgrounds are perfunctory, Bunny's insipid, and even Raffles' brief romance with ""a girl in a million"" can't justify this restatement by rote of ""I thieve for the sake of thieving.