A KILLING IN THE MARKET

Three unrelated, slimy stock operators--two Wall Street speculators and a Beverly Hills broker--die separately, sequentially, and variously (auto-bomb, gunshot during sex, electrocution). So police specialist John Harbizon must oversee three simultaneous investigations that focus on the financial manipulators' common victims (all three jerks were involved in the tricky trading of Sphinx Wire & Cable shares) as well as on their unseemly private lives. And helping out with the hunt are Schneider & Burroughs, the Woodward & Bernstein of Wall Street, who exploit the murders in their lobbying for tighter securities regulation. Bali's uninspired writing doesn't keep this busy scenario from bouncing around attractively, but the semi-surprising ending is both from another world and, if you care, morally reprehensible. (Since the murderees were nasty, the murderers go free.)