CORKSCREW

Canadian small-town cop Reid Bennett (Dead in the Water, Live Bait, etc,) and his super-canine sidekick Sam return--in an intriguing mystery that gets increasingly less interesting as physical confrontations (involving nasty biker-gangs) once again take over Wood's sturdy narrative. Kennie Spenser, 13, disappears from the summer home rented by his stepfather (a mean-drunk college prof.) and mother. So Bennett starts searching the area, while also trying to keep a lid on a volatile cycle-gang that's recently invaded the neighborhood. Then Kennie's body is found at the bottom of a lake; soon thereafter the stepfather takes a fatal drive off a cliff (suicide?). Subsequent clues--a vandalized summer-cottage, a porno-tape, the dead boy's crush on another teen-ager--link the murders to the bikers, who have by now kidnapped Kennie's mother and Bennett's actress-girlfriend Freda. And, before the final revelations (ho-hum), there'll be tense hostage-negotitations, considerable hand-to-hand combat, and a mini-war between two rival biker-gangs. Some agreeable touches in the local color and the Murphy Harbour citizenry--but Bennett's stagy showdowns and macho heroics make this a solid bet only for the most action-oriented mystery readers.