Filth, films, flowers, felines and falsehoods

MYSTERIES

Combining a cause with creativity in mystery fiction can be tricky, but Donna Leon succeeds -- as she has done before -- in About Face (288 pages, Atlantic Monthly Press, $24), her 18th novel featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice police.

The cause is environmentalism, and Leon vividly depicts an Italy plagued with waters sullied by pollution, with carcinogens released into the air by factories, with garbage piling up in the streets.

The creativity comes as she concocts another brilliant story. This time out, Brunetti is investigating the possible illegal transportation of hazardous trash. Meanwhile, his aristocratic father-in-law, Count Falier, has asked him to look into a businessman who has approached Falier with an investment proposition. The two probes -- one professional, one personal -- meld in an entirely believable way as the ever-humane Brunetti is faced with corruption, a murdered policeman and the businessman's mysterious wife, who is certain to linger in the reader's memory.

With an intricate story and credible characters, what more could a reader ask? Good writing, and Leon is a master prose stylist:

"Brunetti had not been to the industrial area for years, though the plumes from the smokestacks formed an eternal backdrop for anyone arriving in the city by boat, and the highest plumes of smoke could sometimes be seen from Brunetti's terrace. He was always struck by their whiteness, especially at night, when the smoke swirled so beautifully against the velvet sky. It looked so very harmless, so pure, and never failed to make Brunetti think of snow, first communion dresses, brides. Bones."

Leon hits only true notes in this gracefully composed and unsettling installment in her distinguished series.

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Moviemaking can be murder, as Roman cop Nic Costa and his colleagues discover in Dante's Numbers (386 pages, Delacorte Press, $24), the seventh book in British writer David Hewson's series.

As Rome prepares for the premiere of "Inferno," a potential blockbuster based on Dante's work, chaos descends on the Eternal City. A bit-part actor is shot to death, the leading man goes missing and a priceless piece of Italian history -- Dante's death mask -- is stolen.

Enter Costa and company of the Rome police, whose job it has been to guard the death mask and other artifacts. And enter Italy's military police, who take over the murder investigation. Before long, all decamp to San Francisco, where many of the film's figures have ties, and rivalries between the two Italian agencies grow fiercer.

Sending his cast to America is a masterful touch from Hewson, who works diligently to keep his series from becoming stale. Nic, only 30 and widowed for several months, finds himself growing closer to the movie's leading lady, echoes of Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Vertigo" resonate and the creepy case grows seemingly more insoluble.

As illusion fuses with reality and builds to a shattering climax, Hewson keeps his readers grounded in what's real. Rich in characters, complex of plot, "Dante's Numbers" is a worthy entry in an erudite, entertaining series.

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With spring come the fruits of our seed catalogues and the anticipation of summer's glories in the garden.

But murder sometimes arrives, too, a deadly weed amid the flowers. The fourth entry in Anthony Eglin's English-garden series, The Trail of the Wild Rose (304 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.95) finds botanist and amateur sleuth Lawrence Kingston in the midst of a plot involving plant-hunters.

When "accidents" begin befalling some of the men who joined an expedition to a remote area of China in search of ancestral roses, Kingston is intrigued and eager to help the investigation. What he finds is a snake slithering about the garden of antiquities.

Eglin's well-crafted mysteries are packed with gardening lore and history. "The Trail of the Wild Rose" lives up to its predecessors, and Eglin is becoming a perennial favorite.

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The scene is a well-tested mystery convention: The hero (or in this case heroine) discovers a body, picks up the murder weapon without thinking, is found in that position and is charged with murder.

That's the situation facing rock journalist Theda Krakow of Cambridge, Mass., in Probable Claws (264 pages, Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95), Clea Simon's fourth installment featuring Theda and her cat, Musetta. But unlike some mysteries that combine felines with felonies, Simon's have a hard edge. And Theda is an all-too-human protagonist as she struggles with career, boyfriend and other life issues.

"Probable Claws" mixes serious reality -- pet-food contamination, euthanasia and professional back-stabbing -- with absorbing fiction, and Simon combines it with well-conceived characters we've come to appreciate, a prose style that suits them and an attitude that far surpasses the cute cat cozies that have become an overpopulated subgenre in the mystery field. With panache and perception, Simon delivers another best-in-show entry.

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A friend in need can be the focus of a well-plotted mystery, and that's the direction that Jane K. Cleland takes in Killer Keepsakes (320 pages, Minotaur Books, $24.95), the fourth entry in her series featuring New Hampshire antiques dealer Josie Prescott.

Four years ago, Josie hired Gretchen Brock as her assistant despite knowing little about her. Gretchen has always remained secretive, and when she doesn't show up for work after a vacation in Hawaii, Josie knows something is wrong. At Gretchen's apartment, Josie finds a stranger shot to death. Gretchen is missing, and the cops consider her a suspect in the man's death.

Josie -- who numbers among the most engaging of characters -- isn't willing to ignore Gretchen's peril and soon finds herself awash in a sea of secrets and lies that threaten to change the way she looks at people.

Cleland, who once owned a rare-book and antiques store in New Hampshire, knows her subject. Each of her books is better than its predecessor, and "Killer Keepsakes" provides not only a smart puzzle with a surprising twist but also a rumination on friendship. And Cleland's discussions of antiques aren't tutorials -- they punch the plot along. Entertaining and educational, thought-provoking and thorough, this is a series that captivates, even if you don't know a Queen Anne highboy from a Depression-glass highball set.

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