THE LOCAL LADS

Even by Scott standards, there's not much plot or mystery in this latest outing for gorilla-like Detective Inspector Rosher--who is hospitalized with a broken leg after a small plane-crash. . . and, ""by lurid coincidence"" (as Scott's jokey narration admits), becomes involved in two linked crimes. Rosher's Jamaican nurse, you see, happens to be the sister of a young street-murder victim. And the killers--two disgusting ""local lads""--just happen to also be involved in a big jewelry heist, which goes astray when the heist-mastermind (a supposedly respectable businessman) has a car-accident. . . and just happens to wind up in the same hospital with Rosher. Thus, Rosher gets suspicious when shady types start visiting the hospital (only the comatose mastermind knows the loot location); eventually he figures out the connection, clomps out of the hospital, trails some bad guys (who've murdered a crony or two by now), and manages to appear at a showdown back at the hospital. But this much-belabored mini-plot provides only the mildest sort of ironic suspense here. And Rosher followers will have to be satisfied with the sardonic tone, the low-life grit, and Rosher himself--who, feeling both tenderness and lust for the Jamaican nurse, is more appealing than usual.