THE KIDNAPPERS

Headline-hugging in Argentina, where capitalists get kidnapped by revolutionaries and ugly Americans meddle. Carlos, desperately trying to regain esteem in the movement, is the kidnapper; Gregory Mendel, Austrian multi-multi and Jewish collaborator with Nazis in the long ago, is the kidnapee. Covering the story is brittle, gutsy journalista Renny Hayes, striving to protect Mendel is the American Embassy's CIA second banana, Peter Kramer (""the original male chauvinist klutz""), and on the fringes are Renny's doomed true love, pilot Harry Nash; Peter's informer, Jewish tailor Albert Rosental (Carlos' uncle and victim of Buenos Aires police brutality); and Mendel's bodyguard, the invincible Prax. There's not a single surprise in this overpopulated, excessively step-by-step thriller (far less lively than last year's Pontius Pilate Papers), but it's carefully crafted, authentically detailed, and intelligently phrased--modest but tangible rewards for those who don't mind a certain thud-thud in their political intrigues.