STORM SURGE

Minutes after mailing four envelopes filled with photos and cryptic notes to four different addresses, retired criminologist Charlie Potemkin is gunned down in his apartment, and it's up to husband-and-wife sleuths Mike McCleary and Quin St. James, who got one of the envelopes, to figure out what Charlie had on developer Lawrence Crandall. As Quin, undercover as Crandall's secretary, noses out hints of what's really going on at Chique Cherries, his flavoring factory, Mike begins to uncover Crandall's links to the CIA and a plot involving not mere drugs but ``the future of the free world.'' By the time a climactic hurricane aborts the maverick feds' multiple kidnappings of our heroes by flattening the offending plant and much of the cast, you'll have worn out your pencil jotting down the interagency betrayals. The action is nonstop, though Quin and Mike, heroes of seven paperback originals, are as forgettable as the interchangeable spooks who are trying to make their hardcover debut into their swan song. The atmospheric Miami backdrop should boost local sales.