MURPHY'S FAULT

So-so debut in which Jack Lynch, director of public relations for the First Interstate Bank of Louisiana, in New Orleans, tries to dig up the dirt on the men suing the Old Man (his boss) to stop the Iris Project--a $50 million-plus deal to redevelop the city's worst ghetto. The snag here is that the opposition is led by Jack's former father-in-law, a brilliant attorney whom Jack idolizes. But dig he must, and his unseemly revelations include a decades-old tie to the mob, back when Jim Herbert was a struggling, poor D.A., bailed out of hospital debts by Big Al Zimmerman. Unable to face the consequences, Herbert takes his own life. Then his daughter Katherine shoots the Old Man in revenge, while the heartsick Jack uncovers the real scoop on Iris: how it's a vast money-laundering operation with the bank culpable. But before this comes to light, his new love Sally is killed, another of the chief players dies, he must threaten several goons with torture, and a bank programmer is slaughtered. Typical escapist fare that plows along at a stolid clip and--shades of James Bond--kills the hero's girlfriend liar the obligatory touch of bathos.