FICTION

SOMETHING IN VALLARTA by Robert Richter (The Permanent Press: $21.95; 204 pp.). The first 50 pages of this first novel contain many overripe passages--at one point, a character is described as “bestowing the jewel of her teasing attention”--but Robert Richter, thankfully, eventually hits his stride. “Something in Vallarta” is a soft-boiled mystery at heart, and while a bit overwrought, has many of the genre’s charms: beautiful women, expensive cars, illicit deals, gunplay, and, of course, Hollywood scum. The hero, a beach bum called Algo (Spanish for something ), has been hired by a rich American--he’s the scum--to keep watch on his girlfriend, and his tale becomes interesting once Algo realizes he’s being used as a courier. Intrigue aside, Richter gives a credible picture of expatriate life on the Mexican Pacific in the 1960s, one in which a thatch hut, a few books and good surf seemed riches enough.