A POCKETFUL OF KARMA

California Bar investigator Nan Robinson's former secretary and childhood friend Debra La Roche is missing, missing, missing. By the time Debra finally turns up in her car trunk in an airport lot, Nan has broken into her house, gone through her mail, and phoned her abusive ex, Tony Fontaine, and her current boyfriends—a rough crowd, natch. She's also talked to Jonathan and April Henley (co-founders of the Past Lives Institute, where Debra had been both a client and an employee); to Coleen McIlheney, the therapist who introduced Debra to her earlier incarnations via hypnosis; to Brother Bartholomew, a sexy, monklike child of the 60's (a fugitive from Cannon's first novel, Convictions, 1985); and to lots and lots of others, most of them sensitive to a fault. Eventually, Nan also finds time to bed down with hunky Jonathan. Bad karma, though it could help pass the time in a therapist's waiting room. A reincarnation—sorry, a sequel—is foretold.