CRIME FOR CHRISTMAS

It's business as usual at the Glendale Police Department--with Delia Riordan, O'Connet, Varallo, and the rest handling routine hit-and-runs, jewelry store heists, and minor drug-dealing. There's also some of the not-so-routine: a series of home robberies of senior citizens, all with the same M.O., but with nothing to link the victims (even though their names are apparently known to the robbers). Plus: the disappearance of 60-ish, wealthy Lila Finch (dead or kidnapped?); the silent stabbing-to-death, in the local library, of pretty, quiet high-school student Nadine Parker; and the brutal killing, along with her dog and cat, of harmless old Mrs. Phelps. More of the same, then--with lots of familiar recyclings from the plot-file, lots of neat solutions, and lots of old-fashioned attitudes (animals are lovable, homosexuals are expendable) in the Egan/Shannon vein.