STEP TO THE GRAVEYARD EASY

Inexplicably engineering matters so that his wife will find him in bed with a tootsie and kick him out, Matthew Cape empties his savings account of $26,000, splurges on a ’91 yellow-and-black Corvette (six-speed, with all the extras and a new glass top), and heads for the open road, helping out strangers along the way and stopping as the whim takes him—a change of life that lands him in the lobby of a plush San Francisco hotel where a blond looker, a ringer for his wife, named Tanya Judson, bamboozles him into a poker game with her alleged brother. The game is rigged, of course, and when Matt steals back his stake, he finds a picture of a couple he assumes are the Judsons’ next marks: wealthy Vegas entrepreneur Andrew Vanowen and his luscious young wife Stacey. But the Vanowens don’t believe Matt’s Good Samaritan warning, even when the Judsons pop up. When Stacy’s envious sister Lacy makes a pass or two at Matt, it’s obvious that there’s more than one setup in progress for Matt to unravel, but not before automatics come into play, car trunks open to the metallic smell of blood, and Matt finally reveals just what prompted his abrupt change in lifestyle.

Pronzini, who seems to be saving his writing muscle for his Nameless endeavors, coasts on pulp dialogue and stereotypes in this short-story-inflated-to-a-novel.