Unsafe Sex

By MARGARET CARLSON

THE HORSE LATITUDES

by Robert Ferrigno

Morrow; 294 pages; $18.95

Part Raymond Chandler (were he soft-boiled) and part Elmore Leonard (before he became famous), Robert Ferrigno has created in his first novel some completely original characters who fascinate without being fantastic. The plot revolves around Danny DiMedici's search for his ex-wife Lauren, a celebrity psychologist who has disappeared after a scientist is murdered in her elegant beach house. But The Horse Latitudes works because it is really the story of Danny's quest to get over his obsession with the amoral, alluring Lauren. Under the cover of deadpan comedy and sharp-edged eroticism, Ferrigno, a journalist from Long Beach, Calif., has produced a work of noir literature that is the most memorable fiction debut of the season. With a magic all his own, he has written an illuminating novel that never fails to entertain but also, surprisingly, makes us feel.

A former drug dealer, Danny is the prime suspect in the murder of Lauren's lover, Dr. Tohlson, who has found a way to use fetal tissue to preserve youth. To prove his innocence, Danny embarks on a journey through the culture of Southern California, where fast sex, fast cars (with cellular phones) and fast money pass for the Trinity. He meets the Uber-twins, Boyd and Lloyd, Tohlson's guinea pigs, as stupid as they are strong. There is also Cubanito, a drug dealer who hates the sloppiness of killing and reads FORTUNE so that he can diversify and buy a McDonald's. He is learning the "langwich," he tells Danny. The sweet, agoraphobic Michael, Lauren's brother, a caretaker for an oil rig, trades commodities from his darkened, video-wired beach house (as cozy, Danny says, as the inside of a digital watch). Finally, there are Jane Holt, Newport Beach's first female police chief, who believes she can find safety in life if she can achieve order, and her old-fashioned partner, who knows the folly of that hope.

Danny's search brings his beautiful wife back to his arms. But as they stroll on the deck of the Queen Mary, he finds himself turning away, drawn to the smoky lounge where women with too many ruffles dance with men in plaid jackets. He longs to be like them, so attuned to each other they could dance without music, as close as "spoons nestling in the wife's silver drawer." It is this yearning for the absolute safety of love that saves him in the end from Lauren's deadly designs, and from himself.