Damned If You Do

This amateurish effort is strictly for laughs--or groans. Leonard's protagonist is a secretly wealthy nerd and medical emergency corps volunteer who becomes involved in a thriller situation. Scott Jamison is in danger of being sacked from the corps and from his vague day job unless he can find out how a small-time drug dealer retrieved a gun from an accident scene. The dealer's widow slaps Scott with a civil suit for her husband's death, while a bigger dealer demands his $20,000 back--money that Scott doesn't have. This whiny, put-upon hero-narrator blames others for his woes; by the novel's denouement readers may blame the author. Scott's less than brainy girlfriend (she refers to a man ``arranged three times on drug charges'') seems a mental match for him (``Drug dealers give grace periods, don't they?'' he muses). When a cop says, ``You're not as smart as you think you are, Scott,'' readers will heartily concur. (Apr.)