BOX NINE

The winner of Mysterious Press's first ``Mysterious Discovery'' contest introduces Lt. Lenore Thomas, of Quinsigamond, Mass., whose undercover duties in drug-infested Bangkok Park are interrupted by news of Lingo, a powerful new drug that acts on the brain's language centers with the effect of ``speed, Spanish fly, and a Berlitz course''—and also reduces its consumers to psychotic rage. While Lenore is following the tracks of Lingo—together with linguist- neuropsychologist Dr. Frederick Woo—her depressive twin brother Ike, a postal clerk, is faced with a mystery of his own: Who's sending a series of grisly packages—a dead fish, a bundle of severed fingers— to unrented Box 9 at his substation? Though both twins find unlikely romance (Lenore with Woo, of course, Ike with supervisor Eva Barnes), their story is clearly heading for a powerfully fatalistic climax. Strong stuff, all right: O'Connell gets so deep inside his small- town cast that it's a relief to turn the last page.