NO MYSTERY ABOUT THESE: `G' IS FOR GOOD

Author: By Robin W. Winks

Date: SUNDAY, November 30, 1997

Page: G2

Section: Books

Richard Rayner's ``Murder Book'' (Houghton Mifflin, $25) isn't the author's first book, but it's his first of the kind. Set in Los Angeles, it introduces us to Billy McGrath, a police detective who has heard of Heidegger, and takes us through his own grim yet somehow poetic days. The plot is driven by the murder of a woman, her crack-dealer son's determination that she be avenged, and McGrath's need for action and certainty in a world where too much ambiguity and compromise has taken its toll on him. Rayner overwrites at times, though generally his many metaphors and similes come off beautifully. I am long past the point where I can't put a book down, but here is one that I put aside only for essential activities.

Another effective debut, a first novel, is ``Quieter Than Sleep'' (Doubleday, $21.95) by Joanne Dobson. This is about murder, theft, jealousy, and madness on a small New England college campus. Most ``academic'' murder mysteries give me the impression the authors know little about how people at universities and colleges truly behave; Dobson, a professor of English at Fordham University, seldom resorts to stereotype or cliche, though she does move her story along through an ample supply of speculation and gossip, which are rife on most campuses, and some sleeping around. Karen Pelletier is an expert on Emily Dickinson, and she has fought up and out of an impoverished childhood and a broken marriage. She is now the initial suspect when the appropriately named professor Randy Astin-Berger is found strangled in a closet at the college president's house. Pelletier and a local policeman develop a wary relationship, not consummated, and between them solve (somewhat behind the reader) the killings. So long as one does not demand to be surprised, this is a fine debut: a book that is true to its scene and a pleasure to read.

``They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee'' (Permanent Press, $24) by Reed Coleman is at times a bit self-consciously literary, and Coleman is not as adept as Dobson at integrating well-heard conversation into his plot, but that said, this is a very appealing discovery for me. Dylan Klein, an insurance investigator who wants to be a novelist, comes to Riversborough, just south of the Canadian border in upstate New York, to look for his missing nephew. Dylan's brother Jeffrey and Dylan's friend Johnny MacClough, once of the New York City Police Department, team up to look for answers to questions that unfold like nesting dolls. The resolution is satisfactory and the story convincing. Thus Coleman's book for me is likely to lead me to search out two earlier titles I have never seen.

`` `G' Is for Grafton: The World of Kinsey Millhone'' (Henry Holt, $25), by Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay, is not precisely a debut: While Kaufman and Kay have not written this kind of book before, as professional scholars they have collaborated on other projects. Sue Grafton is scarcely unknown. Nonetheless, this quite engaging book is a first of its kind, and the first full-length study to my knowledge of the work of Sue Grafton, who in Kinsey Millhone has created perhaps the most likable female private eye in the business. The book is divided into 11 sections, the first six of which treat Kinsey as a real figure, providing a coherent biography of her (as the novels do not), exploring her personal relationships, etc. The book then makes a graceful transition toward the authorial voice, and in the end we get chapters on ``Grafton on Kinsey,'' ``Grafton's Writing Style,'' and Grafton's place in detective fiction. The judgments are shrewd and, I believe, right, and the style is happily free of academic jargon while nonetheless introducing readers to reasonable amounts of popular culture theory. This is one of the best books of its kind I have read; I hope the authors will take on another writer soon.