KILLER INSTINCT

Once again, ex-tennis star Jordan Myles, now a partner and head physical therapist at California's Desert Springs Sports Science Center, a training facility for athletes, finds herself embroiled in deadly doings. Jordan's other job, as commentator on the TV program Women/Sport, takes her to a tournament at Madison Square Garden, where three-year-old Celine York becomes ill while watching the game with her mother Anna Martinez, traveling companion of trainer Artie Lutz. The child dies, and Anna becomes unhinged, making accusations of murder, sending threats by letter and phone. Once back in California, Jordan begins work with Jasmine Li, a beautiful, near-the-top player soon to be engaged to ex- basketball dynamo Malik—at the same time trying to sort out her own long-time relationship with Dr. Gus Laidlow, a founding partner of the Center. Their problems soon take a back seat to a series of disasters: Trainer Tanner Axel dies of a heart attack; clients Dieter and Klaus Schidor are hospitalized with nausea and vomiting, then recover and return to Germany; Malik, visiting Jasmine at the Center, suffers a fatal accident on a routine climbing exercise, and Artie Lutz commits suicide. The scene shifts to Hilton Head and another tournament. There, in the wake of another death, Jordan reaches the dismal end of a complex trail. An overplotted but lively look at the frenetic lives of those in the game's upper reaches and at the commercial forces behind them. Less travel and less of Jordan's soul-searching might have sharpened the focus, but this last in a trilogy (Breaking Point, 1996, etc.) is the best.