SURE OF YOU<i> By Armistead Maupin (Harper: $10.95) </i>

The seventh installment in the popular “Tales of the City” series continues Armistead Maupin’s chronicle of contemporary life in a romanticized San Francisco. Part soap opera, part roman a clef and part ably written contemporary novel, “Sure of You” is as entertaining as Maupin’s earlier books. While Michael Tolliver confronts the permanent terrors of his HIV-positive status, Mary Ann Singleton, who began as the heroine of the books, succumbs to an insidious disease within her soul. She’s turned into an uncaring, status-hungry yuppie. Even Anna Madrigal, the ethereal, stoned den mother who presides over 28 Barbary Lane, has given up on her. Like the earlier “Significant Others,” “Sure of You” is really about Brian Hawkins, Mary Ann’s beleaguered husband. Originally a singles barfly, Brian has developed into an increasingly sympathetic figure, an intelligent baby-boomer grappling with the problems of growing older and growing up. Maupin has said “Sure of You” is the final volume in the series, but that decision is probably reversable: His characters, like his readers, may demand that he continue the story.