L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

In “Harm Done,” an aged pedophile is released from prison, and the good folk of Kingsmarkham, in Sussex, England, fear for their offspring. First one young woman, then another disappears only to reappear apparently unmolested but reluctant or unable to reveal what happened to them. And while Chief Inspector Wexford of the local police plumbs these puzzles, a 3-year-old also vanishes under equally mysterious circumstances.

Those bereft urban venues that Americans call projects the English call estates, but life in both is similarly lousy, risky, drug-, drink- and take-out-ridden and ultimately lonely. There’s more bonhomie and less violence on the Kingsmarkham estate to which the paroled pedophile returns, but bonhomie shrinks and violence breaks out as anxieties and rumors swell because a populace that is less than fully employed, hence bored much of the time, takes pleasure in excitement, however unpleasant, and welcomes the thrills of trepidation. While Wexford and his acolytes pursue inquiries, crowds gather, howl, riot, stone the home of their selected victim and eventually kill one unlucky bobby with a homemade firebomb, all of which distracts detectives from more urgent pursuits.

Consummate storyteller that she is, Ruth Rendell scatters conundrums all over the place, and Wexford, like her readers, finds that clues fizzle, strands break, trails peter out or raise unexpected perplexities, all in an atmosphere of tension, anxiety and fear. Like Shakespeare’s web of life, this mingled yarn holds good and ill together and in the end turns out to be less about kidnapping or pederasty, more about rumor mongering, domestic violence and mindless untoward abuse.

Classic detectives like Sherlock Holmes and Philip Marlowe act as saviors who, for the right reasons, may do illegal things. Police detectives are denied that advantage. They represent the law and have to carry it out even when its prescriptions are counterproductive. In this instance, Wexford & Co. do what they are supposed to do and what they can’t help doing: enforcing rules that keep victims victimized and enable sadists to live out their nasty madness. Then (at last) a victim strikes back, the festering sadist dies and rules that once stifled can happily be handled to protect. Though not without “Harm Done.” A typical Rendell; engrossing, controlled, most of the time detached, understated and fascinating in an undertone.

The plight of policemen caught in the toils of regulations gets an unlikely spin in Batya Gur’s latest fantasy, “Murder Duet.” In Jerusalem, members of a major musical family, the Van Geldens, begin to get picked off: first the father, who dies the apparent victim of an unconvincing robbery, then the younger son, who is practically decapitated. Police Chief Supt. Michael Ohayon would lead the inquiry, but he is caught in a close relationship with Nita van Gelden, single mother, talented cellist and sister and daughter of the two dead men. Friendship with a potential suspect (or prey) hampers Ohayon, though not so as you’d notice if you keep reading on.

But what really hamstrings Ohayon is that he has fallen in love with a very young, very small baby abandoned in the basement of his condo complex. Discovery of the discarded infant sets off an emotional explosion in the long-divorced, middle-aged lone wolf and keeps him off balance throughout the book, as it would anyone condemned to chase clues and suspects while worrying about baby-sitters and baby bottles. Babies and social workers do rather queer a policeman’s pitch, exposing Ohayon to more self-doubt and indecision than usual and even to sporadic bouts of self-pity.

But babies also bring their nurturers together. It was through their respective infants that Michael befriended Nita and entered the Van Gelden family circle. And it is the Van Geldens and their connections who deliver long, informative, sometimes engrossing, sometimes distracting, lectures on music that take up a good part of the novel and justify its subtitle. Readers who enjoy their diet enriched by musical nutrients (Gur is also a respected Israeli opera critic) will appreciate the book. So will fans of relaxed detecting and of an unusually sensitive and vulnerable policeman who never, as he demonstrates, acquired the armor that is the gift of habit.

The Library of Congress employs some 4,000 individuals, welcomes 1 million visitors a year and shelters more than 114 million items on 532 miles of shelves housed in three large buildings. It also provides opportunities for the odd crime, the odder the better.

That’s where Margaret Truman’s 16th Washington murder mystery plays out, when an unpleasant and widely unloved researcher has his head bashed in. The victim, Michele Paul, whose murder will soon be linked to other dark and dirty deeds, is also a world-renowned authority on Hispano-American materials and specifically on Bartolome Las Casas, friend and confidant of Columbus. Truman’s amateur sleuth, Annabel Smith, herself an expert in pre-Columbian art researching an article on Las Casas, is drawn into the investigation. So is a comely TV reporter; so is a millionaire bibliophile out for rare books and tax deductions; so are senators, librarians, security personnel, corrupt Mexican police and inept Metropolitan police who can’t even corner a stalker.

Truman’s writing is like a flatfoot but, as she keeps the plot unraveling faster and faster, you begin not to notice the absence of style. Because murder and sleuthing unfold among thickets of books, the violence is muted, the turbulence muffled, crises are quelled, all of which makes for restful reading, especially when waiting for Congress to decide on next year’s library budget.

Oh what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive.

Then, when all has been said and done,

It turns out to be not much fun.

Not many know how to be sly

Creatively. And nor do I. *

LA Confidential