Slingshot

Hunter (Sweeney's Run) has shown himself to better advantage than in this convoluted near-future thriller. When Florida-based reporter Matt Cooper discovers the corpse of his murdered father-a best-selling novelist-he quickly becomes the prime suspect. Cooper must then probe his father's WWII past in order to clear himself, but soon comes under attack on two continents from mysterious assailants. While squeaking through a series of narrow escapes (thanks to equally mysterious guardians) Matt takes up with a perky young female reporter; though their badinage points to romance, they share nothing but adventure until the book's sappy final scene. Thickening the brew are a newly established middle-class (Middies) in open revolt against the elitists (Leets) who now control the U.S., and an international charitable foundation run by a murderous Japanese gangster who's fomenting a new American revolution. This overly ambitious plot is thwarted by one-dimensional characters and unbelievable situations-the picture of America in a revolutionary mode (Bostonians rioting against a federal coffee tax, a la 1773) is truly goofy. (Jan.)