White Rush/Green Fire

McGarrity, who writes mysteries as Bartholomew Gill, proves himself more than capable in the thriller genre in this absorbing story in which cash and cocaine turn otherwise upstanding people into desperadoes. Art professor Jay Gelb and assistant NYPD police chief Bill Cicciolino are snorkeling with four friends near an uninhabited island in the Bahamas when they discover a stash of money and dope in the still-smoldering wreckage of a seaplane and the remains of a speedboat. The other passengers on their chartered schooner agree to split the loot--except for Eva Burden, whose ex-husband was a coke addict. After a seaplane strafes the schooner, Eva jumps ship and swims for the island, where she saves the lives of wounded American drug buyers; meanwhile, Gelb sails an ill-gotten yacht back to New York with the coke. Unbeknownst to all but Eva and her new friends, however, the Medellin dealer sends a beautiful assassin, along with murderous Boyaca Indians, to retrieve the drugs and dispose of those involved with the theft. McGarrity closely observes the methodical unraveling of an ostensibly perfect crime by characters whose greed and madness are neatly portrayed. (Sept.)