Edition: U.S. / Global

BOOKS OF THE TIMES; California and Computers In Two Murder Mysteries

Published: October 24, 2002


By Michael Connelly

371 pages. Little, Brown & Company. $25.95.


By Jonathan Kellerman

408 pages. Ballantine Books. $26.95.

Gumshoe tactics used to be clever enough for detective work. But increasingly these days typing plays a major role. In their sneaky new California murder mysteries, both Michael Connelly and Jonathan Kellerman make computer research and other technological dexterity integral parts of crime-solving and successfully use this to generate suspense. Mr. Connelly has even had the ingenuity to make a voice-activated lighting system vital to his book's combative denouement.

''Chasing the Dime'' is steeped in up-to-the-minute science. Its main character -- a new one for the author best known for Harry Bosch -- is a research chemist named Henry Pierce. And he has done innovative work in the field of molecular computers and nanochips (''What if your computer was in the button of your shirt or the frame of your eyeglasses?''), to the point where his company is involved in a race to patent its breakthroughs. Henry has named the cutting-edge project Proteus, in honor of the white submarine in ''Fantastic Voyage'' that traveled through human bodies.

Speaking of bodies, ''Chasing the Dime'' also has a lot to do with cyberpornography. Henry has just moved into a new apartment in Santa Monica (after his breakup with the woman in his life, a weary and obligatory subplot for this genre) when he gets a phone call for someone else. And then another and another. It seems that his new number previously belonged to a hot number named Lilly, who advertised her availability as an escort for a service named L.A. Darlings. Presto: Henry begins investigating this outfit once he figures out that Lilly is permanently unavailable for future dates.

So Henry enters a world with disembodied sex for sale and criminal shadows lurking in the background. It is the same world that entraps Adam Sandler's character in the current film ''Punch-Drunk Love,'' and it also snares this ''longhaired surfer chemist.'' Mr. Connelly uses this accidental voyeurism as a way of hooking readers, but the scientific side of his book is actually sexier. While ''City of Bones'' had a more gripping mystery plot, ''Chasing the Dime'' creates a scarily high-tech brand of intrigue.

Mr. Connelly is a spare, expeditious storyteller with a natural talent for generating forward momentum. Mr. Kellerman takes a more detailed and photographic approach. In ''The Murder Book'' he creates quite the roller-coaster ride for fans of this genre, leading the reader through a panoramic range of West Coast settings and always stopping to catalog the particulars. Only occasionally (at a ranch redolent of ''that curious maple syrup-and-rot tang of dried equine dung'') do his descriptive powers get out of hand.

''The Murder Book'' opens by providing Dr. Alex Delaware, the psychologically probing hero of many of the author's earlier novels, with a chilling gift for the man who has everything. Without explanation, a photo album full of crime-scene pictures arrives at his home. They are captioned unremarkably but guaranteed to prompt a reaction from the homicide detective Milo Sturgis, Alex's longtime friend and sidekick. The book reminds Milo of a grisly case (a murdered teenage girl who disappeared after a wild party in Bel Air) that he failed to solve 20 years ago. And of course it gets his goat.

While Milo cruises through Los Angeles and environs looking for witnesses with long memories, Alex boots up his computer and checks out search engines. ''The Murder Book'' makes amusing note of how much off-base information such methods can provide (stories on tourism and hundreds of resort links from the name ''Playa del Sol,'' though Alex is trying to find out about a construction project). But it also finds Alex checking data much more thoroughly than he otherwise could, which gives ''The Murder Book'' a very knotty and abundant set of clues. Mr. Kellerman habitually has trouble streamlining the whodunit part of his mysteries, so the book unearths many acts of treachery. As Alex himself might observe, the author cannot commit.

Alex is having trouble with his longtime girlfriend, Robin, who rarely says anything interesting. She is out of town for almost all of the story (with ''the two of us tripping through the calisthenics of separation,'' as Alex puts it). But as the book travels from Oxnard to Ojai to Santa Fe, from spoiled rich kids to sullen gang members, Alex pauses periodically to mope and worry about Robin. ''She's really had it with my risk-taking behavior,'' he confides to a fellow therapist.

These digressions help turn Mr. Kellerman's latest into Milo's book. Milo is a big guy -- blunt, funny and no nonsense. The presence of a glamorous Vietnamese restaurant with a Bavarian chef in Los Angeles typically brings out his caustic acumen. (''Milo figured the patrons had never served in the military.'') He is stung by the guilt-producing Murder Book, and it is his past that gets re-examined here. And the fact that Milo is gay (his partner is Rick, a doctor) and has had to conceal that fact during a long career with the Los Angeles Police Department adds another element of tension to the story. Mr. Kellerman has a way of succinctly noticing all sorts of bigotry in matters of race, gender, sexual orientation and economic caste that supply the underpinnings for his far-reaching story.

Photos: Michael Connelly (Reuters); Jonathan Kellerman (Jonathan Exley/Ballantine Books)