The Sunset Bomber

Top-notch Los Angeles lawyer Harry Cain is known as ""The Sunset Bomber'' because he can blow any opposition out of the courtroom. On his way to the funeral of a friend in the film industry, he gets propositioned at a red light by a voluptuous blonde in the car next to him. Cain goes on to the funeral, but later tracks down the woman and begins an affair. He also struts his attorney stuff in a string of melodramatic trials: a male movie idol battles a conviction for soliciting sex with a vice policeman; a millionaire tries to protect his holdings during a divorce from his greedy, promiscuous wife; an ex-con turned network executive defends himself against accusations of dishonesty in his second career. Kincaid has an appealing, earnest narrative style, but he relies on simplistic Hollywood name-dropping to lend his novel allure, and makes the naive assumption that a lawyer's life and career will be inherently interesting by virtue of its proximity to the rich and famous of Beverly Hills. Paperback rights to NAL. (March 15)