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Hager, Jean

Masked Dancers

New York, The Mysterious Press (Warner Books). 282 pp. US $23.00.

Mitch Bushyhead, small-town chief of police, is searching for his daughter and her two friends. He finds their abandoned bikes and begins to pray for all he is worth: don't let them be hurt, don't let them be dead. He even thought of making a deal with God, but couldn't think of anything he had that God would want in exchange for the safety of his daughter and her friends. In fact he finds them alive and well, but he also finds the carcass of an illegally killed bald eagle and a young game warden - murdered.

Thus begins this suspenseful and insightful novel into the human condition set in modern Oklahoma.

There are a number of mysteries wrapped within each other. Where is the school principal, Vian Brasfield, who had discovered his Cherokee roots. Had he killed the eagle for his feathers as ancient tradition required? Had he killed the young game warden? Then Brasfield himself is murdered. Intrigues swirl round the small town of Buckskin. In the midst of all this, Mitch Bushyhead is trying to raise his daughter on his own and establish a relationship with a woman doctor.

The case is solved, though interestingly enough, there is a plea bargain at the end and an interesting discussion on the American judicial system which makes it possible.

Jean Hager lives in Tulsa and was named Oklahoma writer of the year in 1992.

Hall, Patricia

The Italian Girl

London, Constable. 206 pp. £16.99.

If you are a handsome film star and decide to visit the humble place you came from and want lots of nice publicity (because your career is on the wane) it is a terrible mistake to chase after the local reporter whose boyfriend is a copper. He'll try to pin anything on you. Especially when a digger unearths the body of a girl. Piltdown woman or a reasonably modern murder? Piltdown woman she wasn't.

On the one hand, a murder that old is difficult to solve. On the other, she disappeared on one of those red-letter days that everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing: Coronation Day.

Detective Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray is in charge of the investigation. He hoped that because it was so long ago, it would not concern anyone living. But, oh, how he would have liked to pin it on that visiting Romeo.

There is another murder (with a body laid across the railroad track) as someone seems to want to conceal the identity of the killer. Family secrets unravel. The innocent as well as the guilty are damaged. A priest refuses to divulge the secrets of the confessional, which Thackeray thinks might have solved the case for him. Suspicion is cast on the innocent, whose lives had touched that of the victims as well as the perpetrators.

Faced with a girlfriend he thinks may have been unfaithful with a visiting star, Detective Chief Inspector Thackeray has to come clean, too.

Patricia Hall is the pseudonym of Maureen O'Connor. She was born in Yorkshire and lives in Oxford.

Hebden, Juliet

Pel is Provoked

London, Constanble. 223 pp. £16.99.

You would think a patient while on dialysis has more to cope with than having it off with his nurse. Not so. The two are gunned down while at it. Crime passionel? Simultaneously, two girls are brutally murdered with teeth marks on their necks. A secret sect? Vampires? A third is left for dead.

The sleuth is the quirky Chief Inspector Evariste Clovis (sic) Desire (sic) Pel of the Police Judiciaire de la République de France (smokes incessantly and doesn't believe in jogging), his sidekick Cheriff, who looks like an African prince, and their team, which invariably falls out of trees, breaking their own arms, legs and noses. The motivation, built on an ordinary, everyday coincidence (two people having the same surname) is very original.

Partly macabre, partly black humor, and at times heart-breaking, this is Mayhem Parva transferred to Burgundy, filled with its sound, smell and taste.

Pel is the creation of the late Mark Hebden. After his death, his daughter Juliet, who lives in France with her six children, successfully took over his creation to the delight of readers and reviewers.

Hillerman, Tony

The First Eagle

London, HarperCollins. 278 pp. £16.99.

The Black Death (did you know) is alive and well in the American South-West. Don't worry about global warming. A whole new set of drug-resistant bugs are going to get us.

Anderson Nez is dead of the plague. An eagle poacher is found huddled over the bloody body of a policeman. A local biologist disappears. The sleuths are the Navajo Tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn (now retired) and Jim Chee.

The account of what it is like to be a Navajo trying to hold on to one's identity, the pull of tribal ways of behavior towards others and tribal ceremonies, misunderstandings between good people and bad from different cultures, conflict between ambition and integrity are not just background but germane to the plot. To solve the case, Jim Chee has to capture an eagle. He does this in the traditional manner, even explaining to the eagle why the eagle must die, to save the life of an innocent man. In absolving an innocent man he sacrifices career and the woman he loved.

Entertaining but also apt.

Tony Hillerman was raised among Pottawatomie and Seminole Indians.

Himes, Chester

If He Hollers Let Him Go

London, Serpent's Tail. 252 pp. £6.99.

In the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, Bob Jones leaves Cleveland, Ohio, thinking he has left its racism behind. In California he gets promoted to become leaderman in a shipyard. But he sees the Japanese rounded up and realizes that if it could happen to them, it could happen to him. He becomes more and more careful. He keeps away from white men. After all, he thinks, what could a white man and a Negro talk about that wouldn't touch on a subject that would embarrass one or the other, or both. Either both accept white supremacy, or both reject it. If both reject it, they would have to condemn all of its institutions, including loyalty and patriotism in time of war. If they disagreed, there was no conversation.

There are constant pinpricks. "You colored boys never obey the rules ..." and "are all late this morning." White women do all they can to tease or annoy colored men, who may not respond.

A white girl is raped, blames Bob Jones, and he tries to run away. He is caught. His worst nightmares now come about, despite the fact that the police release him from the crime they discover he did not commit. Police and the head of the shipyard still manage to humiliate and destroy him.

Hunter, Alan

Gently Mistaken

London, Constable Crime. 159 pp. £16.99.

A murdered married woman in the apartment of her lover. The post mortem reveals she was pregnant and Theory No. 1 is that she told her lover she was pregnant, demanded he marry her after she divorced her husband, he murdered her and took off. The trouble with that theory is that the lover is found murdered. Theory No. 2 is that the jealous husband did it. Alas, he has an alibi. The murdered woman had a brother with a violent temper. Perhaps he murdered the lover, thinking the lover killed his sister. Then a local tramp is found to have an awful lot of money, but he escapes from police custody. Would an innocent man flee police questioning? Wheels within wheels within wheels and the cogs do not seem to mesh.

The sleuth is the aptly named Superintendent George Gently and he ain't easily taken in, even by what looks obviously so. Watch the jealous husband's secretary who has the most secretarial of motives, but what motive is that?

A puzzling howdunnit police procedural.