FEAR WILL DO IT

Little does Chicago cabbie/shamus/adventurer Cooper MacLeish (A Long Cold Fall, 1991) know that his girlfriend Diana Froelich isn't sleeping with Tommy Thorne, the smooth-talking old friend who just blew back into her life; under Tommy's strong-arming, she's fronting his blackmail pitch to pornography czar Moss Wetzel, so desperate to cover up some crime he committed in Trinidad that he's willing to call on some very nasty hired help--his deadeyed bodyguard Wes Czop, ex-cop Frank Fudge, and muscle-brained Jimmy Poulos--who'll leave Tommy dead and then come running after Diana. What happens next--Cooper's doomed attempts to get Diana to turn herself in to the cops, Diana's increasingly narrow escapes from Wetzel's goons, their frantic search for the evidence Tommy had on Wetzel--won't surprise a soul, but it all hurtles on with satisfying conviction. Cooper manages to be both scared and tough. Strong escapist fare.