Theft, murder, free enterprise

Valerie Block’s “None of Your Business” is an enticing enterprise. Patricia Greiff nee McCarey was born helpful, warm and gregarious. Marriage to Mitch helped her overcome these drawbacks. Mitch Greiff, a Manhattan celebrity accountant, has a bleating human family that nauseates him and a fish family that enchants him. One of his employees, Erica King, all clammy white face and coarse nylon-like hair but clever and vastly resourceful, thinks people are overrated and flees the abrasions of human contact. Then, on Friday of Labor Day weekend, 57 wire transfers initiated from several laptops move millions of dollars from accounts held by clients and partners of Friedman, Greiff and Slavin to unknown destinations while Mitch disappears with the pelf, not to be missed for weeks. That’s when NYPD’s Computer Crimes Squad gets on his case and that of Greiff’s unknown aide, whose sophisticated electronic wizardry helped him siphon the millions. Their investigation stirs the muddy waters of Friedman Greiff, exposing snake pits of personal discontent and corrupt dysfunction, turning Mitch Greiff into a whiny fugitive, demonstrating Erica’s multiple talents and sending Patricia into a relentless downward spiral.

The narrative spiral is more zestful. It features New York neighborhoods, rental property, computer fraud, identity theft and the FBI (Federal Bureau of Incompetents, to the NYPD detectives) in a minor role. She builds her plot as children erect pyramids, block by small building block, until all coheres in a suitably mitigated unhappy end.

Lisa Gardner’s murder-mongering grows more cringe-inducing with every volume, and “The Killing Hour” is her most horripilating yet. In Georgia during the late 1990s, a killer waylays and murders young women, two by two, and no one knows who he is or what makes him tick. Except for baffling phone calls and an enigmatic message, always repeated: “Clock ticking ... planet dying ... animals weeping ... rivers screaming. Can’t you hear it? Heat kills.” That earns him the moniker Eco-Killer. Georgia Bureau of Investigations Special Agent Mac McCormack is obsessed with but frustrated by the elusive killer, who suspends his activities for a while, then he resurfaces in Quantico, Va. McCormack, on his trail, meets Kimberley Quincy, an FBI trainee who had stumbled onto the wacko’s latest prey and has her own reasons to hunt him down. While the clock ticks, the temperature simmers in the high 90s, and the FBI lumbers into action, McCormack and Quincy join forces, but fail to prevent more mayhem until, breaking all their law enforcement rules, they run the villain down and save one of his victims.

True to current fashion, the Eco-Killer presents himself as a victim too. McCormack “doesn’t want to hear this ....” Quincy agrees: “He’s gotta blame his actions on everything but himself.” Right on: Having left a long trail of girls who died badly and families whose lives have crumbled in their wake, the crazy murderer talks about Mother Nature. Wicked Stepmother Nature more likely. Gardner keeps us guessing pretty much to the finale. She also keeps us on edge. There are thrills, spills, torments, false leads and enticing clues, bears, bats, bugs, rattlers, isopods; there’s a Dismal Swamp oozing poisonous mud and putrid waters. And lots of heat and feebs and still more.

Kelly Lange is a former anchor and reporter for KNBC-TV in Los Angeles; so is Maxi Poole, the heroine of her first murder mystery, “The Reporter.” Maxi is back in “Dead File” -- a term used for tape put in special storage because it can’t be aired. Gillian Rose, czarina of the country’s largest manufacturer of vitamins, diet supplements and other delicious indulgences, is found dead on the floor of her office at Rose International in Los Angeles. Since television news is not for the meditative or meek, Maxi has squirreled herself to the crime scene, where her cameraman shot tape of the body that can’t be made public but which, viewed and reviewed by Maxi, will stir her to epiphany.

So much for the title. As to the rest of the throbbing tale, its core lies in the setting, tradecraft and atmosphere of a TV studio and its newsroom. Maxi and her malamute have recovered from injuries they suffered in “The Reporter.” They are both still hurt a bit, though you couldn’t tell it from the frenzied pace our heroine keeps up, which is further accelerated by the proclivity of various protagonists to call for her intervention for no evident reason. This gets worse when the murdered woman’s longtime assistant, Sandie Schaeffer, barely escapes a similar fate but is left badly damaged, and Gillian’s randy husband, Carter Rose, reports an attempted aggression against him as well.

All this time, Maxi navigates surface roads and freeway networks as de rigueur in L.A.; also computer networks and a broad selection of local fleshpots and taprooms, which pretty much takes care of the action. The cast of characters is devious but not too violent, and while many developments are telegraphed well in advance, they still leave room for surprises, especially at the end. Lange has conjured up a gossamer-light entertainment that is more fun than you would think. But Maxi is getting seriously accident-prone. She had better look out.