HEAD LOCK

At the rate he's going, Tom Bethany, Boston's foremost Spenser imitator, will soon be out of the mystery business altogether. Here, he follows up his S&L bashing in Bear Hug (1992) with a by-the-numbers counterattack on the pro-life zealots who trap his longtime married lover, Hope Edwards, in a D.C. abortion clinic—and terrify Kimberly Butler, a teen too shattered to go through with the abortion she's come for, into suicide after her picture turns up on the evening news. Caring, sensitive Bethany naturally goes after the people who ought to feel guilty but never do: William Pearsall, the drama coach who got Kimberly pregnant, and (mainly) Rev. Howard Orrin, the televangelist whose Life Force ``shock troops'' gave her the shock of her life. Tapping massage-parlor hostess Wanda Vollmer as badger-game bait, Bethany soon has Orrin taking a break from his Senate bid to get tied, beaten, and ridden around Wanda's place—as if you didn't expect that all along. Slick, liberal vigilante pap. Expect a rebuttal from Dan Quayle.