Mystery's afoot, from the Big Apple to Bombay

Associated Press Writer

When it comes to being allowed into heaven, the late Sterling Brooks is on thin ice. But he proves to be a good skate after he is returned to Earth and finds the key to celestial entry on the ice skating rink in New York's Rockefeller Center.

That key is Marissa, 7, separated from her father and grandmother because they are hiding from two brothers out to kill them. How Sterling helps bring those bad Badgett brothers to justice and reunites Marissa with her family just in time for Christmas is told in "He Sees You When You're Sleeping" (Scribner) by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark.

This collaboration by the mother-and-daughter duo is among the latest hardcover novels of mystery and suspense, which include books by Lawrence Block, James Patterson, Jonathan Kellerman, H.R.F. Keating and Laura van Wormer.

A few subway stops uptown from Rockefeller Center is an Upper West Side townhouse where the Hollanders -- he's a lawyer, she's a novelist -- are found brutally murdered. It creates a 15th case for private eye Matthew Scudder, in Lawrence Block's "Hope To Die" (Morrow). Instead of being sent up the river, the suspects are soon found across the river, dead, in their Brooklyn apartment. But Scudder thinks the real killer is still on the loose.

What more logical title for a follow-up to "Roses Are Red" than "Violets Are Blue" (Little, Brown). The latest in James Patterson's series about Alex Cross finds the Washington, D.C., police detective visiting the netherworld of modern-day vampires in search of a serial killer whose victims are drained of blood and bear human and tiger bites. An unwanted distraction for Cross is that he is being stalked by his archenemy, the super criminal called Mastermind.

In "Flesh and Blood" (Random House), Jonathan Kellerman whips up another case for Alex Delaware, Los Angeles psychiatrist. Delaware investigates the murder of Lauren Teague, a big-ticket call girl who was shot and dumped in an alley. Delaware's interest stems from the fact that 10 years ago the victim was his patient, a bright but troubled teen-ager he was unable to help.

Inspector Ganesh Ghote is in a professional slump in H.R.F. Keating's "Breaking and Entering" (St. Martin's). The high-profile case of a murdered millionaire found in his tightly guarded mansion was given to another detective, and the case to which Ghote was assigned -- a minor one involving a string of cat burglaries -- is proving more difficult than he expected. But the worm finally turns: When Ghote finds the burglar, he also finds a clue that might help solve the murder case.

Call her Sally "Trouble" Harrington in Laura van Wormer's "Trouble Becomes Her" (Mira). Sally, assistant producer for a TV news station, is the star witness in a sensational Hollywood murder trial and plans to testify despite threats from mobsters who have already tried to kill her. Adding further stress are an out-of-control actress, Sally's overamorous ex, the disappearance of her boss, the body found in the trunk of her rental car, and the lovesick college intern who shows up at her doorstep.

Murder can happen anywhere: to an aspiring writer at a romance novelists' convention in Texas, in Bill Crider's "A Romantic Way to Die" (St. Martin's); on a ship en route to Iberia in the seventh century, in "Act of Mercy" (St. Martin's), Peter Tremayne's ninth Celtic mystery featuring Sister Fidelma; at Notre Dame University, where a professor and his private eye brother are looking for missing rare documents, in "Emerald Aisle" (St. Martin's) by Ralph McInerny; and at a crossword puzzle convention in small-town Connecticut, in Parnell Hall's "Puzzled to Death" (Bantam).

In other mysteries:

A wooden doll in a miniature casket is one of the few clues in a missing persons case in "The Falls" (St. Martin's) by Ian Rankin.

An old icehouse in the woods yields a long-dead, obviously murdered mummy, in "Someone To Watch Over Me" (Morrow) by Jill Churchill.

Environmentalists and a rash of burglaries thwart expansion plans at a Vermont ski resort, in Archer Mayor's "Tucker Peak" (Mysterious).

A small-town psychiatrist is shocked when he is told secrets about his wife by a violent teen-age patient, in "Man and Wife" (Forge) by Andrew Klavan.

Parker, that master thief, is at it again, this time targeting an art collection hidden in a remote Montana lodge, in Richard Stark's "Firebreak" (Mysterious).

And Rex Stout, Sara Paretsky, Mickey Spillane and Jeffery Deaver are among the contributors of the 36 stories in "A Century of Great Suspense Stories" (Berkley).