OUTSIDE IN

Major drugs are moving through Maryland's Hagerville State Correctional Facility, and the DEA needs a woman inside. Their choice is Cameron Andrews, a decorated Baltimore cop whose hatred of drugs goes back to her brother's fatal overdose, and whose lesbianism makes her a natural candidate to infiltrate the tight- knit prison ``family'' that's directing the traffic. Before she can go undercover at Hagerville, though, Cam has to be drilled, hardened, and discredited, and tearing her apart brings out first-novelist D'Arnuk's real passion. In a long, long flashback, Cam undergoes a rigorous psychological indoctrination that makes Marine boot camp look like Camp Fire Girls, and learns to enjoy getting cuffed for sex by her shapely martial-arts instructor Michael Gauchet. It's knowledge that'll prove unexpectedly useful when Cam's finally shipped off to Hagerville and finds that sleeping with a serious masochist is her quickest route to the cocaine that flows through the prison as easily as dishwater. But the story lags when Cam, unsatisfied with a lower-level bust that's put her in the hospital, insists on going back into Hagerville to nab the faceless lady at the top of the food chain. The scenes of Cam's training and prison life shout tough, tough, tough. Once she gets down to undercover detection, though, Cam seems all stripped down with nowhere to go.