DEALER'S WHEELS

Fast, mindless melodrama--the third in a British series about ex-drug dealer Jack Hallam, but the first to appear here. (Wilson wrote a promising sf novel, The Lost Traveller, some years back.) At 35, back in England after fugitive flights, Jack is still in love with motorcycles but lives quietly. . . till he sees his old buddy Denny flash by Old Bailey, whack a plastique bomb against a judge's Rolls-Royce, and scoot off while vast destruction follows. Jack investigates, soon finding himself in bed with Denny's girlfriend and in trouble with the police. (Denny, it seems, has joined the Irish National Liberation Army.) And since the police are hard upon him, Jack lams out for Cornwall--still in search of Denny. Multiple explosions ensue, as do a motorcycle chase and a shootout--all of which adds up to empty, brisk action for those partial to untextured violence, British-style.