Hide and Seek

From Publishers Weekly

Prep-school student Richard Knowles returns to New York from vacation in Colombia unaware that his jacket lining contains about $400,000 worth of cocaine--placed there by his no-good dad. After bolting through customs and losing his passport en route, Richard is alone and on the lam. He holes up in a fleabag hotel in Times Square, where he meets Lisa, a 15-year-old prostitute. Together they evade police, Richard's yuppie-junkie pater, a sleazy hotel desk clerk who tries to rip them off, Lisa's dwarf pimp--all the while trying to raise cash by selling some of the cocaine and, at the same time, falling in love on New York's mean streets. The pace of this first novel is quick, the writing smooth and Berg's sense of place, particularly in the midtown Manhattan scenes, realistic. The characterizations are unimitigated stereotypes, however, and the longings and observations of the teenage protagonists quickly grow stale for those over 15. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.