...extends from Malibu--""a special place for very special people. It sings of sin and surf and sand"" up and down the rockier regions of the California coast. In this energetic and palpably believable novel we swing with the surf set and more particularly Vickie, strange nymph who came from the sea to attach herself to Denny, the local god of the waves. But Vickie, actress by profession, is something else by inclination as we trace backwards from the first chapter when it is learned that she is in the hospital, raped ""fifteen different ways."" The love affair is handled in total recall by the narrator, an aging beach bum, ex-tennis darling who now hustles the courts for just enough bread to get back into the scene. The mystique of the waves, the free life and the young golden ones is all done up in extensive, almost lyric passages. But the story, which includes such Hell's Angels types as Jimmy the Head, Jawbone and Big Jane, not to mention a sadistic movie impresario whose touch turns damsels into masochistic monsters, makes this more of a California Dream (nightmare!) than raw reality. But it's readable. And it could travel.