Elvis in Aspic

Los Angeles's National COMET is the sort of newspaper that graces the magazine racks in supermarket checkout aisles. Disillusioned journalist Steve Toast covers the ``Elvis beat'' for the paper, and editor Stan Barfyskowicz sends him out on a spicy story: a mysterious man named Coates claims that the CIA murdered Elvis after James Earl Ray told him of a CIA plot to assassinate Jimmy Carter for refusing to stick with the Company program. Coates thinks the CIA wants to silence him permanently, a claim that Toast finds more convincing after the interview, when he himself is tailed and shot at. His informant fares even worse: Toast stops by Coates's house only to find him dead. Toast's life is further complicated when Jan Thomas, an ex-girlfriend and now West Coast bureau chief for the Washington Post , calls up claiming she wants to be ``friends.'' DeMarco ( Murder at the Fringe ) depicts Toast as an appealing, regular guy trying to survive in a world that is strange even by L.A. standards, but the conspiracy theory lingers on long after its effervescence--and the story with it--has gone flat. (Jan.)