L.A. CONFIDENTIAL

ONE STEP BEHIND by Henning Mankell. Translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg. The New Press: 416 pp., $24.95.

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A DARKER JUSTICE by Sallie Bissell. Bantam: 352 pp., $22.95.

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A STUDY IN DEATH by Iain McDowall. Thomas Dunne Books/Minotaur: 192 pp., $21.95.

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In Henning Mankell’s “One Step Behind,” it’s summer in southern Sweden and it’s been raining a lot. Inspector Kurt Wallander of the Ystad police has lost the father whom he loved and the woman whom he thought he loved. His daughter lives in Stockholm. The police are understaffed and lack resources. Crime has the upper hand and the judicial system has capitulated. He’s fiftysomething, lonely, depressed, overworked, easily exhausted and liable to drop off to sleep unexpectedly. The doctor tells him he has diabetes and has to look after himself, but there’s no time for that.

A smug and baleful murderer is on the loose, killing capriciously, unpredictably, without apparent motive. Is a lunatic perpetrating this meticulous, apparently random bloodshed or is it a murderously nutty sect? With little to go by, Wallander and his sleepless cohorts stumble ahead, but their weary efforts seem to get nowhere. Always one step behind, they can’t prevent the killings and the dread prospect of still more to come. Baffled, caught in a net of frustration and media attention, Wallander is more Wallander-esque than ever: blunder-prone, burdened by bouts of absent-mindedness and by sudden rages, yet steadfastly professional, dogged, tenacious and brilliantly intuitive. Which is good but doesn’t really change much because society is bad.

Mankell continues to be a master of atmosphere and suspense. His deliberate pace stresses the murk and mayhem barely concealed by the facade of everyday routine. Even his digressions enhance the tension of the tale. But Mankell’s mood gets darker by the book, and his tone becomes ever more politically, socially and psychopathologically correct--or perhaps just down in the mouth. Is that a sign of age? Or just a hard, disillusioned look at the world around?

Sallie Bissell’s “A Darker Justice” is another page-turner: a chiller that delivers thrills as fast as it telegraphs them. Someone is knocking off federal judges and we know why. A coven of religious lunatics and rich, powerful men is scheming to get richer and more powerful still by getting a television preacher elected president. They have been offing congressional incumbents for years and getting their own candidates elected in their stead. Now they have cooked up a wacky prediction and broadcast it on the Internet: When it is fulfilled and the last judge is purged, it should bolster the electoral fortunes of their candidate for the White House.

The next and last victim on their list is strong-minded Judge Irene Hannah of the 4th Circuit, who sits on the appellate court in Richmond, Va., but lives on her farm in the mountains of western North Carolina, where she raises Appalachian Mountain horses quite close (unbeknownst to her) to the hellhounds’ lair. Because Hannah won’t let the FBI protect her, they bring in Atlanta prosecutor Mary Crow to do the job. Though feisty, the two women don’t do very well in the self-protection department until, with the help of a young boy, Crow turns the tables on the villains and their vile schemes turn to rubble.

Here’s a fast-moving story, elegantly told, in which Bissell (who is unfashionably big on loyalty and friendship) weaves a palpitating web of sinuously deadly suspense.

Iain McDowall’s “A Study in Death” is a study in self-indulgence. It has a battered corpse, a basketful of suspects, a covey of police officers easily distracted from their investigations, a major computer system disemboweled as part of a murky scam and a beefy blackguard on the run getting into trouble when he shouldn’t. It even features a New Age community in the picturesque Lake District and a slew of other photogenic northern England venues, with Amsterdam thrown in for good measure and a long-distance call to UCLA, where the vic was about to take up an appointment in the History Department.

How, then, does McDowall manage to turn this gold into dross? The nearest I can come to an answer is: incoherence. The Brits get their man, of course, but that is not the point, and even resolution comes as an afterthought. The characters’ recurrent soul-searchings and soliloquies slow the action, of which there is not much in the first place. The cutting’s too fast, episodes mesh poorly and it’s hard to keep track of characters or engage with them. The whole exercise is reminiscent of “Gosford Park” on speed. You’re never sure what’s being said, who’s saying what or why you should pay attention. Perhaps you should not.

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Eugen Weber is a contributing writer to Book Review.