THE ART OF THE DEALER

By GINIA BELLAFANTE

Manhattan's demimonde of the 1980s has ravaged many a fictional character, but few as mercilessly as Adrian Sellars, an art gallery owner whose troubles are mounting like so many empty bottles of opening-night Mondavi. Sellars is plagued by a lust for both heroin and a beautiful Harlem drug dealer. His forgery scam is going awry, his partner winds up murdered, and a Japanese mobster is threatening to kill Sellars and his family if he does not deliver a promised Monet.

But it is not the glamorously seedy plot of David Ramus' new thriller, Thief of Light (HarperCollins; 291 pages; $23), that has the publishing world abuzz. It is the eerie similarity between the fictional story and that of the author. Ramus, a wan Alec Baldwin look-alike, is a first-time novelist with a potential best seller in his future, and also a possible prison sentence. Like his protagonist, in the '80s he was an art dealer with a fondness for heroin. By the '90s he had overcome his drug problems, but questionable business dealings left him with a $4 million debt and allegations of fraud.

In May the U.S. Attorney's office in Atlanta charged Ramus with bilking his clients by failing to turn over revenue from the sale of their paintings. Ramus denies any crookedness on his part. "The bottom dropped out of the art market," he says. "I ran a business in which people did not get paid. I owe them money. I have not disappeared.''

Instead he retreated to a borrowed computer, where at the urging of a bankruptcy lawyer he wrote his semiautobiographical novel in 10 months. "We figured that if I got $40,000 for the book it would enable us to pay some bills," says Ramus from his modest rented house in Atlanta, where he has lived since 1993. He got considerably more than that. HarperCollins paid a stunning $1 million advance for the first novel, despite a lazy writing style that features passages such as "Art speaks to me. I don't know how or why." And then, 129 pages later, "I really had loved the art. For as long as I could remember it spoke directly to me."

Despite Ramus' legal problems, his literary career is proceeding smartly. Foreign rights to Thief of Light have been sold to 13 countries, a movie deal is in the works, and he has started a second novel, focusing on a young art appraiser. As a result of a civil suit filed by his former clients and other creditors, the author has agreed to pay them 65% of his earnings from Thief of Light, as well as a share of profits from his second book.

HarperCollins editors say they were unaware of Ramus' financial problems when they bought the novel, but they are, needless to say, standing behind the book and its suddenly marketable author. "We worried that if he were in jail he wouldn't be able to do a book tour," says HarperCollins vice president Lawrence Ashmead. Never fear: the trial is scheduled for next month, and Ramus began his seven-city promotional blitz last week.

--Reported by Joseph J. Kane/Atlanta and Andrea Sachs/New York

With reporting by JOSEPH J. KANE/ATLANTA AND ANDREA SACHS/NEW YORK