GOD AND ALL HIS ANGELS

A serviceable thriller-of-the-future notion--British super-patriots knock off the ""extremist bullyboys"" responsible for England's malaise--becomes something a bit more, courtesy of Graham Lord's (The Spider and the Fly) slippery stylishness and unforced, psycho-comic wordplay. ""God"" is the code name for the power behind these ""new radicals. . . men of the Centre,"" and among his ""angels"" is Sariel, a.k.a. Tony Maxwell, director of the Festival of Britain, a spate of pageants and gimmicks designed to attract tourists to a Britain of strikes, food riots, Arab cartels, and a pound worth twenty cents. Maxwell is God's most artful hit-man; he abhors killing, preferring to destroy reputations by digging up--or fabricating--a ""big black rock of precious guilt"" for each victim. He pins ""Britain's Attila the Hun,"" selfless black anarchist Bernie Shaw (""The Turd-Brown Incorruptible""), with newspaper stories about Bernie's villa in Portugal, and moves on, with special relish, to his next assignment: cabinet minister Eddie Carpenter, who is coincidentally (?) his wife's lover. There's almost as much bedside introspection (""I don't hate women; I understand them"") as globetrotting knavery, but Lord's antic muse (""Just a thong at twilight"") keeps things safely this side of seriousness--even when, in a nightmarish coda, God stages his coup and puts the headsman back to work on Tower Green.