LADYSTINGER

Likable con artist Maggie Rohrer gets yanked out of her round of routine scams rolling lecherous conventioneers in New Orleans for a Mission: Impossible scenario in Jamaica. Maggie's new assignment is to wiggle her hips, etc., at pill- popping underworld accountant Gordon Wexler, feed him a dose from her bottle of knockout drops, and pinch a computer diskette loaded with information about the money-laundering activities of Wexler's boss, Albert Magliocco (called ``Headache'' for his habit of decapitating business rivals). But when she and her new mentor, Jack Shanks, take off for Jamaica, they're walking into more trouble than they know: Maggie's old partner Barry Landers is on their tail, and the suitcase Maggie's about to lift from Wexler—in lieu of the magic diskette—is bulging with cash he's stolen from the Magliocco brothers in preparation for flying off into the sunset. The possibilities for double- and triple-crosses are multiplied by the news that Jack's an FBI agent out on a limb trying to build a case against Headache—or is he an ex-agent, as he insists, determined to clear his name after an unfair suspension, or maybe a free-lance just trying to take Maggie for a ride along with the hoods? So much for Maggie's hero; you can imagine what the heavies' knife-wielding henchmen are like. Newcomer Smith writes without Elmore Leonard's sense of vicious, meanspirited fun, but, still, he keeps you guessing about Jack and Maggie up until the last page. The movie sale promises Charade on uppers.