TO HATRED TURNED

Sluggish rendering of a bizarre Texas murder case, complete with she-devil villainess. Englade (A Family Business, 1992, etc.) shuffles the usual suspects and motivations here (greed, a woman scorned, etc.). In 1983, he tells us, one Joy Aylor (a.k.a. Jodie Packer, Leigh Curry, Stephanie Grimes, etc.) discovered that her husband, Larry (owner of a successful Dallas house-building firm), had been sleeping with beautiful, young Rozanne Borghi Gailiunas—the wife of family friend Peter Gailiunas, a successful Dallas physician. Joy put out a contract on Rozanne and soon the woman was found naked, tied to bedposts, shot, strangled, and very dead. It took the cops five years to nail the killer: The man whom Joy contracted to do the deed—Dallas auto-mechanic Brian Lee Kreafle—had, it seems, subcontracted the killing to one Andy Hopper, manager of an auto- body shop. When finally caught, Hopper confessed and was convicted of capital murder. Meanwhile, in 1986, Joy shelled out $12,000 to have Larry murdered because he was now sleeping with her younger sister. The attempted hit failed, although three .22 bullets went through the cab of Larry's truck, one hitting a friend in the elbow. Finally, in 1991, Joy, who fled the country, was snagged in the south of France. Today, she awaits trial in Texas on conspiracy charges. So overcomplicated that Englade includes a dramatis personae and a ``Chronology of Major Events''—but readers may still get lost wending through his labyrinthine, lackluster account. (Eight pages of b&w photographs)