by JULIET WATERS

Devoted, intelligent readers are always looking for that writer who will change lives, or at least challenge perspectives. At the same time, however, most of them are looking for that entertaining, undemanding page-turner that's well enough written that no one will feel trashy the next morning. Few books serve this purpose as well as Peter Craig's Hot Plastic. The story of two generations of grifters, the back cover of Craig's second novel screams words like depth, intelligence, sexy, insight, elegance - all bolded so we'll know this is no airport gift shop page-turner. "A smart book by a real writer," proclaims the typical blurb.

And true enough, Peter Craig is a real writer. Educated at the esteemed Iowa Writers' Workshop, he's still even a resident of Iowa City, a place reasonably far away from where he grew up as the son of actress Sally Field. His writing has the fluency and eye for detail that you'd expect from your typical mid-list writer, the industry term for those virtually unknown writers whose critically acclaimed work can usually be picked up for $5 on the remainder table at Chapters.

We first meet Kevin Swift, Craig's anti-hero, as a wounded fugitive, drifting in and out of consciousness while the police are searching for him. "The last residue of sunlight glowed on a smudging vapor trail, a bright slash across the sky, and then it was gone behind helicopters and sharpened taillights… he gauged the missing time in sweat and shadows." Fancy-assed writing to use for a character who never finished high school and spells platonic "plutonic." Craig, however, is not just some writer with a pretty sentence. He's got all the elements down: complex characters, a smoking plot and even an interesting social vision.

Kevin is the son of a grifter. His dad, Jerry, is old school. He's the kind of charming, personable con-dad who takes the same paternal joy in watching his kid pull his first restaurant cashier sting that other dads might take at a bar mitzvah. Kevin, however, is a new breed. A weird loner, his social skills are inversely proportional to his fascination with numbers and technology. Hot Plastic takes place over a decade, the '80s, as Jerry's strengths are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the world of emerging ATMs and computers. Kevin may even be borderline autistic. Not particularly good with emotion, at heart he may turn out to be an even colder, more calculating evil genius than good old dad. Kevin could be perfectly positioned to take his place in the dark reign of hackers and spammers. As it turns out, however, even evil geniuses need love, or at least family. And they all have their weak spots.

Enter Colette, a sophisticated teen hooker who in many ways is the perfect complimentary angle to this duo. She has all Jerry's charm and bullshit, and it makes sense that she would first hook up romantically with the father/mentor of the team. She's got Kevin's sense of what's out there, however, and it's inevitable that she's going to outgrow Jerry's dime-store bag of tricks. Their speciality is identity theft. The '80s, with its hyper MTV self-consciousness and chameleon-like icons, is the perfect backdrop to this sort of criminal underground epic.

In the end, however, Hot Plastic is kind of like the pleather of literature. It's hard to put one's finger on what distinguishes a lasting piece of work from a fun but forgettable read. There's a cynical thread running through this novel that isn't merely limited to the soullessness of its criminals. Craig works all the commercial elements as effectively as the artistic ones: the '80s nostalgia, the Tarantino-esque wit. In the end there's more flash than substance. But it's a hell of a good ride while it lasts.

Hot Plastic by Peter Craig, Hyperion, pb, 352pp, $20