Cheater

A new Goddard hero--Virginia cop Henry Culver, late of the CIA--makes his debut here, but the story that brings him to muscular life is every bit as hectically violent as those that entrapped the author's previous men of action (Wildfire, Prey, etc.). Pitted against Culver in this unflagging thriller are some of his former colleagues, a few new ones and, most lethally, the madman and computer expert known as Digger, who is shown in the novel's opening pages employing a particularly frightening means of breaking into a private home in order to murder the residents. The kicker is that Digger is an ""asset"" of a CIA faction that plans ""a grasp of international power on a scale that has the potential to dwarf every industrial and social revolution in recorded history."" The power grab revolves around an upcoming international gathering on the environment in Washington, but this premise serves only as the narrative's sparkplug--the turbine is composed of the action itself, which spins ever faster as Culver, soon joined in his quest by a vengeful French military man, dodges death and kills in turn as he seeks to take Digger down. Goddard has a habit of ending chapters on cliffhangers and later revealing what happened almost as a passing aside, but most readers, flipping the pages to enjoy the next tense thrill, are not likely to care. (May)