Slip of the knife

Denise Mina's bold, brave crime novels make up for all the indignities women suffer in genre fiction - especially the notion that a female protagonist is better off being likable than being real. Mina smashed that false article of faith with her dead-grim Garnethill trilogy, featuring a hard-bitten heroine who fights the social conditions that lead to the abuse of women, children and the elderly in a Glasgow slum. "Field of Blood" began a second series, not nearly as gritty but just as truthful, about Patricia Meehan, known as Paddy, a Glasgow newspaper "copyboy" ("so inconsequential she could have hanged herself at her desk without exciting comment") who develops into a first-rate crime reporter by investigating a series of child murders in her working-class neighborhood. By the time SLIP OF THE KNIFE (Little, Brown, $24.99) opens, in 1990, Paddy, now a newspaper columnist, is something of a local celebrity: "She had stumbled on a talent for articulating nationwide annoyances." But Paddy is still an investigative journalist at heart, and when someone murders Terry Hewitt, her first love, she's all over the case. That takes some courage, given the police theory that the killing was an I.R.A. hit and Paddy's own suspicion that Terry and a photographer who becomes the next victim were murdered because of the book they were working on. Paddy's potty mouth and irreverent attitude are good defenses in the rough-and-tumble world of cutthroat journalism. (One of the book's lowdown pleasures is watching a pack of story-hunting jackals terrorize a killer after his release from prison.) But despite her tough exterior, Paddy can't hide the essential decency she brings to a dirty job. Mina's realistic style gives her urban settings a smudged beauty as distinctive as the roaring wit of Glasgow's colorful citizens. Close characterization is another forte, and sizing people up at a glance is a specialty. "He was a small, bald man and as such didn't like to be seen doing small, bald things" pretty much takes care of a petty-minded editor. To grasp the sense of dislocation felt by a man fresh out of prison, all you need to know is that "the last time he was in a car his feet hardly touched the floor." And Mina's scenes of violence, rough enough by genre standards, feel more intense because she relates them from the victim's point of view. That's real guts for you. OBEDIENCE (Shaye Areheart/Crown, $24), a first novel by Will Lavender, is so slithery it ends up eating its own tail - which is not a bad thing for an academic mystery posing a puzzle so tricky that even the main characters wonder if the whole thing is a hoax. Don't expect any easy plot summary here, but it should help to know that the college students running around rural Indiana, trying to rescue a kidnapped girl in the six-week grace period before she's due to die, have been assigned their task in Logic and Reasoning 204. The creepy Professor Williams strongly hints that "Polly" is a real person and that her fate is indeed in their hands, but you can't help wondering why the college campus boasts a statue of Stanley Milgram, the behavioral psychologist who conducted infamous experiments in blind obedience when he taught at Yale in the 1960s. Authentic puzzle mysteries are an endangered species in these hectic times, so it's a genuine, if slightly perverse, kick to follow every byzantine clue in this bizarre game. Yes, the characterizations are thin, and yes, there are times when you want to yell, "Hey, kids - if X is so, and Y is also so, then. ..." But the author always jumps in to cast doubt on some initial premise in the mental equation. If you solve this one without peeking at the last chapter, it's an automatic A. We're so accustomed to finding Victorian-era mysteries set in gaslight London (or, if we're lucky, gloomier Edinburgh) that the initial surprise of THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION (Delacorte, $24), a first novel by Lawrence Goldstone, is its Philadelphia locale. Although members of high society figure in the plot, this is no refined mystery of manners. Rather, it's a grimly faithful account of the state of medical research in the late 1800s. As seen through the eyes of a young doctor studying under William Osier, a real-life pioneer in modern medicine, the anatomy room of the Blockley Dead House is the most exciting place in the city - until a more sophisticated student introduces him to the delights and dangers on the shady side of town. Vivid period setting and amazing medical detail duly noted, if Goldstone's hero were any more naïve he'd be institutionalized. Robert B. Parker's crime novels about Jesse Stone, the chief of police in Paradise, Mass., never really hit their stride until Crow came to town. A hired killer whose real name is Wilson Cromartie and whose Apache ancestry seems dubious, Crow returns in STRANGER IN PARADISE (Putnam's, $25.95), a story about the usual small-town troubles that's involving without being exciting. But who cares, as long as it teams up two action heroes who were born to fight on the same side. Crow is Hawk, the enforcer in Parker's better-known Spenser series, before he was housebroken - which allows Jesse to be Spenser, before he got old. Jesse and Crow take target practice together ("We're good. ... "We are") and discuss their careers ("No point being a warrior if you can't find a war"). But mainly they talk the guy talk that is music to our ears. Denise Mina's novel features a journalist with 'a talent for articulating nationwide annoyances.'