SPARROW HAWK RED

Ricardo (``Ricky'') lives with his widower father Benito in an Arizona border town. Benito, formerly with the Drug Enforcement Agency, is teaching his son to fly—illegally, since Ricky's only 13. Meanwhile, eavesdropping on his father and some DEA agents, Ricky learns that his mother didn't die accidentally, as he's been told, but was murdered by drug-cartel members—the same men who've stolen a DEA radar-equipped plane that Ricky vows to get back. Posing as a homeless Mexican, he invades the druglords' compound, seizes the plane, and flies home. Concerns about being a ``quitter'' nearly sink this adventure, as do two abrupt breaks from Ricky's point of view to his father's. But Mikaelsen pens savage scenes of Mexican street life, pokes fun at government officials, provides action-packed aerial sequences, and somehow pulls off his premise that a 13-year-old could put one over on seasoned drug traffickers. Innocent and appealing. (Fiction. 10-14)