THE SLASHER

Another case for one-armed N.Y. shamus Dan Fortune--whose bland hard-boiled narration is slightly more flavorsome this time around Summoned by old flame Marty to Southern California, Dan looks into the murder of Marty's husband's niece Suzy--a waif-like model/prostitute who is supposedly the latest victim of the prolific Slasher. But Marty and others are sure that Suzy was killed for other reasons (she was searching for the mom who abandoned her)--an idea that's confirmed when the body of Marty's modeling-agency connection also turns up. So Dan sleuths around the fashion biz in Santa Barbara, beds both a model and Marty (""Together. Again""), gets beaten up and chased, and tries to spot Suzy's real mother among the suspects. The solution, however, involves something Suzy saw by accident, something linked to the CIA and old Nazi war crimes. Imitation-Macdonald all the way--but passable, with a few nice touches (Dan winds up backstage at a TV quiz show) in the giossy-seedy California setting.