WASTELAND

One ill-fated evening Will Dunbar, lobbyist and bagman for L.A. developer John Clem, punches Sam Gilmore, site manager for Clem's new Pike Mountain trash-disposal project, after catching Sam sharing a private moment with Caroline Dunbar; the next evening, accepting Gilmore's invitation to talk things over at his house, Will stumbles over his body. The cops, who can't find any evidence of the intruder Will saw fleeing, are convinced he's the perp; during the months it takes the case to come to trial—months during which Will alternates between twisting slowly in the wind and digging himself into a deeper hole—the D.A.'s office sews him up even more tightly, with help from a bulldog reporter who says Sam had leaked info to him about Will's payoffs to local politicos. Will seems destined for a long stretch up the river—until the state's case explodes with a bang that frees Will to hunt down the killer who framed him. Too many twists saved for the last fifty pages, maybe, but McCabe (City of Lies, 1993, etc.) juggles the clichÇs of the genre with a dexterity that'll have you gasping with excitement and grudging admiration.