Just Killing Time

This is the novel that was first bought by Simon & Schuster, then let go after blurbs from John le Carre and Joseph Wambaugh were found to be false. Readers curious about the fuss may be in for a disappointment. For Van Arman's book is mechanical, considerably overplotted and often clumsily and luridly written; it is the and considerably overplotted serial--the kind of serial-killer saga that can hardly fail to be moderately exciting but that seldom is fresh or original. Van Arman presents lengthy discussions of the serial-killer personality (often in awkward lecture form), and advances the seemingly absurd claim that more than a third of the population will encounter a psychopath at some point. Heroes Jack Scott and Frank Rivers are in pursuit mostly of the infamous ``devoid'' Zak Dorani, whom Scott has been hunting for decades, though a wealthy dental supply tycoon and his weird sidekick are also on the recreational killing trail. An adorable small boy who discovers a long-buried body places himself and his beautiful mother in danger. There is an elaborate subplot about the development of suburban Washington (Van Arman hates Bethesda with a passion) and a black township's destruction through arson, and a fey old black lady whose memories bring it all back. A gruesome climactic shootout set at the Lincoln Memorial takes care of the dental pair, but a more terrible vengeance--for that's what these policemen deal in--awaits Zak. Van Arman develops some suspense on occasion, but his book required much tighter editing and less swollen editorializing to work as the bloody crime thriller it means to be. 100,000 first printing; Literary Guild alternate. (June)