CROSSED WIRES

First-novelist Simpson's come up with a nifty premise for a detective story: A hearing-impaired government researcher known simply as Finley, who feels comfortable and secure only with the friends she talks to via her computer keyboard, investigates a series of throat- slashings by finding out which bulletin boards the victims had logged onto. But, unfortunately, the book doesn't live up to its conception: The characters—from the computer-fearing cop who works with Finley to the Pelagianist killer who believes (like Raskolnikov, but a lot less compellingly) in establishing his freedom by acting without motivation—are uniformly flat, and Finley, who never realizes that she's been chatting electronically with the murderer for months, and opens her door to a black-clad stranger after she's been warned that her life's at stake, is one of the densest detectives around. Routine stuff, then, with perhaps some appeal for modem mavens.