INDIGO SLAM

Three years after the witness relocation program hustled his family out of Seattle seconds away from some men with guns, Clark Hewitt is on the run again—but this time he hasn't taken his family with him. So his eldest daughter Teri, 15 going on 40, leads her two siblings into Elvis Cole's office waving a fat sheaf of bills in Cole's face as a retainer for tracking down her father. In a way, the case is a no-brainer. It doesn't take Cole (Sunset Express, 1996, etc.) long to establish that Clark has gone back to Seattle, and by the time he reports to the children, their dad's already returned. But everything Cole's found out in his search spells trouble: Clark is a druggie and a counterfeiter who'd turned state's evidence against Russian mobsters who are now bent on killing him and his kids, and he can't turn to the feds this time because he's gone back to printing funny money. Things are no better on Cole's own home front. His girlfriend, Baton Rouge attorney Lucy Chenier, is angling for a job that'll keep her as close to Cole's body as she is to his heart, but her powerful ex-husband steps in just in time to queer the deal. Cole will have to keep him, the feds, and the Russians at bay long enough to cruise into a Disneyland finale that screams movie movie movie. Sure, Cole works his easy charm to the max. But since he's riding Crais's twistiest and best sustained plot with all the panache of John Travolta, it's a pleasure to see him enjoying his work more than any other p.i. in California history.