DEATH-WISH GREEN

Pat and Jean Abbot are almost too opportunely on the spot when the disappearance of Katie Spinner off the Golden Gate Bridge precipitated an investigation with a multitude of ramifications. No one who knew Katie well believed in the theory of suicide, but it took another accident- or was it murder?- of a model friend of Katie's and a strange succession of involvements linking society figures with the beatnik crowd, before identities were disentangled, associations clarified and a solution reached. Too many irons in this particular fire -- and for the average reader confusion is worse confounded by liberal use of the beatnik jargon and some pretty cheap assumptions.