Panic times 2, prey, paintings and pets

MYSTERIES

Athreat of mass terror, a government complicit in the danger, the aftermath of war, financial turmoil.

That may sound like a contemporary story, but it's the plot of Among the Mad (320 pages, Henry Holt, $25), the sixth installment in Jacqueline Winspear's literate and haunting series featuring Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator.

On Christmas Eve 1931, Maisie witnesses a man commit suicide on a London street. Before long, a letter is delivered to Britain's home secretary that mentions Maisie's name and threatens a mass attack. Maisie is summoned to Scotland Yard by the force's Special Branch, which enlists her help. Before long, Maisie determines that the perpetrator must be a veteran of World War I whose mental illness has been exacerbated by the Great Depression and who has the means and the mentality to create chemical weaponry.

Meanwhile, Doreen Beale, the wife of Maisie's assistant, Billy Beale, has slipped further into depression in the wake of their youngest child's death. Shuttling among institutions in hopes of finding help for Doreen and answers to the escalating threats, Maisie ferrets out part of the truth. The entire story eventually comes to light (of a sort), as Maisie -- herself a nursing veteran of the Great War whose sweetheart died as a result of his injuries -- must again confront her own demons.

With a plot that seems ripped from the headlines, a sympathetic and intriguing heroine and prose that leaves the reader marveling at her powers, Winspear has again created a work of great moral probity in which the horror is leavened -- and perhaps even surpassed -- by the author's encompassing humanity.

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In a Peter Robinson mystery, things can be as they seem, or not, or both. His 18th novel featuring Chief Inspector Alan Banks of the Yorkshire, England, police, All the Colors of Darkness (368 pages, Morrow, $25.99) is no exception.

The case at first appears to be open and shut. Detective Inspector Annie Cabbot is called to the scene of a suicide by hanging. The victim is identified as Mark Hardcastle, a gay, 46-year-old costume and set designer for a local theater group. When Annie visits the home of Mark's partner, 62-year-old Laurence Silbert, she and a colleague find him beaten to death.

Case closed, right? A lovers' quarrel, a crime of passion, a remorseful killer. But the more Annie and Alan look into the case, other possibilities crop up, including professional jealousy and government intervention (Laurence was a retired spy).

With each novel, the talented Robinson grows his characters in unexpected ways, and he does so in "All the Colors of Darkness." But the most compelling aspect of this thumping good read is Robinson's focus -- in the aftermath of 9/11 and the 7/7 London attacks -- on the blurred line between protection from terrorists and persecution of the innocent.

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In the first third of the 20th century, Isak Dinesen was running a coffee farm in British Colonial Kenya, a life she would immortalize in "Out of Africa." At the same time, Agatha Christie was hitting her stride as a master of mystery.

Combine those sensibilities, and you have Suzanne Arruda, whose fourth book in her Jade del Cameron series, The Leopard's Prey (384 pages, Obsidian, $24.95) melds Dinesen's evocation of a bygone Africa with Christie's ability to fashion a sharp whodunit.

Jade, an expatriate New Mexican, is living in Kenya in 1920 and working as a travel writer. To add to her income, she takes a job helping a company collect wild animals for U.S. zoos. But when a merchant is found dead on a coffee plantation, and the local inspector suspects Jade's boyfriend, Jade sets out to investigate the case herself.

Along the way, she and her beau, Sam Featherstone -- an expatriate Indianan, pilot and moviemaker -- seem about to become the next victims.

Arruda writes with flair, creates an intriguing puzzle and plays fair with clues. But the main attraction of this series is Jade herself -- sometimes reckless, never feckless. And yes, there's a dangerous leopard in the mix, but neither a killer cat nor a human killer can prevent the plucky Jade from saving her man and providing absorbing entertainment for the reader.

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When family history turns up unexpectedly, where we come from can profoundly affect where we're going. That's the situation in Gary Newman's The Ruffian on the Stair (288 pages, SohoConstable, $25), a multifaceted story reminiscent of the tightly concocted puzzles of S.S. Van Dine or John Dickson Carr.

Sebastian Rolvenden is a freelance garden writer who lives in a lighthouse on England's Essex coast. When a lawyer on the English Channel island of Jersey sends Seb some of his late grandfather's long-lost effects, the stage is set for search and revelation.

It seems Grandpa -- a respected Anglican priest -- lived a wilder youth as the Victorian age came to a close, one that involved a chorus girl, a rent boy and an artist who disappeared, along with his purported masterpiece. As Seb begins to search for clues to the past, he becomes a suspect in a contemporary disappearance.

A plot so intricate could sink under its own complexity, but Newman makes the proceedings easy to follow, and Seb is a sympathetic character. With clues laid out -- but easy to miss -- "The Ruffian on the Stair" is a first-rate portrait of two eras, and only the luckiest of readers will see the final-page shock coming.

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New friends can be a pleasure or a peril, as pet sitter Dixie Hemingway learns in Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof (288 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.95), the fourth entry in Blaize Clement's series.

Dixie, a former deputy in the Sarasota County (Fla.) Sheriff's Department, tends to pets on Siesta Key, an affluent barrier island off Sarasota. On her way to work one day, she hits the brakes to avoid striking a Havana Brown cat and its pursuing person, Laura Halston. Over dinner, Dixie and Laura strike up a friendship, as Laura recounts her story of fleeing an abusive husband in Dallas.

But when Laura is found stabbed to death, her face mutilated, Dixie's old cop instincts kick in again, and she sets out to do some investigating on her own. And readers who think they see the end coming may well be surprised at Clement's well-conceived twist.

Clement's series -- a blend of the cozy and hard-boiled traditions -- is informed by the author's obvious belief in humanity and her passion for animals. "Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof" is no exception, with Dixie becoming more appealing with each book. And this installment's cast of quadrupeds -- golden retriever Mazie, Chihuahua puppy Baby and, of course, Leo the cat -- are as endearing as their predecessors.

Contact Jay Strafford at (804) 649-6698 or .