Books : Mysteries : Insight Into Complex Characters Is ‘Sinner’s’ Salvation

Three of the finest sisters in crime have novels out this month, and as I sprawled on the sofa eating licorice drops, happily turning the pages, I found myself wondering how important it was for readers to have previously formed relationships with the main characters to appreciate the new offerings.

For example, it would be arduous to plow through Elizabeth George’s exquisitely written but labyrinthine “In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner” (Bantam, $25.95, 595 pages) if you had no knowledge of her regular cast: the aristocratic Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley (just returned from his honeymoon) and his blue-collar partner, Barbara Havers (currently in disgrace and demoted for disobeying orders in the last book). George offers some background but not enough. Newcomers may feel a bit out of it, like they’re trying to get a seat at the popular kids’ table in the high school cafeteria.

Still, I’d stick with it. After a riveting prologue set in London’s West End, the action abruptly shifts to Derbyshire, where a young man and woman have been violently murdered on a moor, each in a different way. The woman, beautiful and sensual Nicola Maiden, is the daughter of Andy Maiden, a former elite undercover agent turned owner of a bed-and-breakfast. He requests that Lynley, of New Scotland Yard, assist the local police.

Determined (for reasons that seem out of character) to teach Havers a lesson, Lynley chooses a new partner, former gang member Winston Nkata, and off they go to the country to determine whether the killer was an enemy of Nicola’s father, her own enemy, or that of the murdered and yet-unidentified male. Meanwhile, the plucky Havers, determined to redeem herself, plays bloodhound in London behind Lynley’s back.

George, a Californian, evokes English city and country life better than a Baedeker guide, and she populates her world with dozens of meticulously drawn characters--an alcoholic lord of a decrepit manor, his lovesick dog-breeder son, a Lolita-ish prostitute, a Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber-like composer.

She is a genius at drawing psychological revelations from an act as casual as choosing wallpaper. True, the mystery is long on red herrings and the story line is as dense as a holiday fruitcake. But what kept me going was my desire to see the plucky Havers get her due, and the moving climax brought tears to my eyes.

*

I started Sara Paretsky’s “Hard Time” (Delacorte Press, $24.95, 385 pages) feeling at a disadvantage--I was unfamiliar with previous adventures of V.I. Warshawski, the Chicago-based, 40-plus detective who was one of the earliest female investigators in mystery fiction. But it didn’t matter a bit because the author swiftly and smoothly brought me up to speed: V.I. (Victoria Iphegenia) went to law school; her father was a cop; she once had an affair with Murray Ryerson, a reporter turned fawning host of a new television show, “Behind the Scenes in Chicago”; and my favorite piece of trivia: I.V. Warshawski was Isaac Bashevis Singer’s pen name when he wrote for the Daily Forward in the ‘30s.

The plot is as complicated as a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of Versailles, but it fits together neatly. V.I. and her assistant, Mary Lou (a former cop), are driving home from a party celebrating Murray’s television debut. Murray (in V.I.’s eyes, a sellout) has just interviewed Lacey “The Mad Virgin” Dowell, a hometown girl turned movie star. V.I. sees a body lying in the road and narrowly avoids hitting it.

The victim, a blood-soaked young woman, is still breathing, and V.I. dutifully summons the police and paramedics. She is thunderstruck the next morning when a thug-like cop appears at her door and accuses her of a hit-and-run. What’s more, the results of V.I.’s breathalyzer test are missing, and before you know it the body is missing too. “Who is the woman I stopped for, anyway?” V.I. demands to know. “Why does it matter so much to find someone to take the fall for her injuries?”

Hundreds of elegantly sparse yet witty pages later, we get the answer, but not before V.I.--a detective so unconcerned about her own safety that she makes Kinsey Millhone seem like Miss Marple--has butted heads with the president of a billion-dollar P.I. firm (“only when they get that big they’re called ‘security providers,’ or something”), the chief executive of a multimedia conglomerate, movie stars, corporate lawyers, socialites, journalists, police and worse. So brilliant is the author at evoking Chicago and breathing life into people as diverse as an overweight youth and a boxer turned priest that I forgave her for resorting to a hackneyed plot twist--sending her heroine to prison so she can acquire information. I haven’t known V.I. long, but I thought she had more sense.

*

Faye Kellerman’s novels usually revolve around the heartwarming relationship between Rina Lazarus, an Orthodox Jew, and her husband, Lt. Pete Decker of the LAPD. New readers will have no problem getting into “Jupiter’s Bones” (William Morrow, $25, 375 pages), the author’s most marketable book. Kellerman has toned down the religious element that gave her series much of its originality and soul. Rina, the beautiful, shrewd embodiment of faith who frequently helps solve crimes, does little but keep the home fires warm. Even her adolescent son, Jacob, a Yeshiva student, is having problems with not the Talmud, but girls.

What you get instead is a fast-paced thriller reminiscent of Waco and Jonestown and every icky guru story you’ve ever read. Decker is called in when Father Jupiter, leader of the Rings of God cult, is found dead, surrounded by pills and vodka. Once known as Emil Euler Ganz, a prominent astrophysicist, Father Jupiter disappeared for 15 years and returned in his new guise with a following of hundreds of disciples. The acolytes, many of whom are children, live in an impregnable compound--long on skylights, short on windows and doors--and take orders from Jupiter’s underlings: gurus named Pluto, Venus, Nova and Bob. Their initial resentment of Decker’s attempt to investigate Jupiter’s death increases pathologically when two young cult members disappear.

The book proceeds in a predictable direction until, like magic, Kellerman breathes new life into Marge, Decker’s stalwart former partner, and gives the reader someone to root for. Kellerman will probably sell a million copies, but Pete and Rina fans may feel shortchanged.

*

The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’Gorman on audio books.

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