Johnny Rose is the kind of investigative reporter whose stubborn insistence on doing his own thing has already lost him at least one job at a big paper and threatens his tenuous hold on what may be his last one. When he hears the fear in the voice of his runaway niece Sara, who"s never asked for his help before, he knows she"s in trouble. But by the time he gets to her, it"s too late. She"s dead, killed in an arson fire set in an abandoned squat where she"s been living with a couple of friends. It"s not long before Johnny makes the connection between Sara"s death and the murder of another street kid, a teenage boy who died by drowning before he was dumped in the Hollywood Hills, miles from his usual hangouts. And it"s just a jump from there to Gem, Sara"s former roommate, who"s as scared as Sara was before she died. Johnny couldn"t help his niece, but he wants to help Gem, despite the fact that she keeps disappearing on him. Only Kate, a counselor at a shelter for street kids, seems to care enough to go out on a limb for the reporter. Not even Dick Roberts, the charismatic former Olympic champion, whose ministry to runaway kids seems like the logical place to jumpstart Johnny"s investigation, is willing to help solve the mystery of the murdered runaways. Long before Johnny figures out the reason for Roberts"s strange reluctance, the reader has cottoned to it and nailed the perps responsible for the kids" deaths. Though this is a somewhat pedestrian outing that lags in places and telegraphs its ending, it"s clearly based on solid research into the world of street kids and the careless society that spawns them. --Jane Adams