NO GOOD DEED

Trial attorney Donald Jarrell checked into Westside General with cuts and bruises he unconvincingly ascribed to falling downstairsbut checked out for good four days later via a lethal dose of pesticide. The Westside bigwigs, sniffing a negligence suit from the widow, call on Bert Swain, media chief for Westside's sister institution, the Krinsky Research Center (Protocol for Murder, 1994). And in no time Bert has dug up a 30- year-old lawsuit that young Donny Jarrell's parents filed against his day-care center for the abuse he and his little friends alleged in clinical detail. Seems that Jarrell, suffering a belated change of heart, spent his last months working on a book he assured everybody who would listen was going to set the record straight, while somebody (another child who'd been pressed into corroborating his charges? the court-appointed psychologist in the case, whose reputation would be put on the line? a defendant who didn't share Jarrell's ideas about fitting retribution?) didn't think that was such a good ideaand isn't too crazy about Bert's nosing around either. Bert, a ringer for your grizzled brother-in-law in Queens, is a suitably low-key guide through this tidy tale.