FICTION

SIGN OFF by Jon Katz (Bantam Books: $18.95; 384 pp.). In this age of the hostile corporate takeover--particularly in the news business, where control too often falls to people who move their lips when they read--author Katz, a former producer at CBS Morning News, has struck gold with this scathing story of the fall of USB News to a rapacious real estate developer. Storming in like Genghis Khan, developer David Nab’s hit squads fire lower-echelon employees en masse, slash services and turn department heads, such as protagonist/producer Peter Herbert, into executioners of their longtime friends and colleagues. Brooding over this, Herbert begins using his expertise in the network-news business--and Nab’s naivete--to sabotage good old USB. (A disliked news personality comes on the air, for instance, distorted to sound like Donald Duck). Vengeance is sweet, and novelist Katz has great fun with it.