CRIMINAL INTENT 1

This mystery analogue to Dark Harvest's Night Visions series gets off to a solid start with a trio of novellas. The standout is Ed Gorman's ``Moonchasers''—a 1958 Iowa idyll of two teenagers who stumble across a wounded bank robber's hideout and have to decide what to do as the situation keeps changing on them: every well-judged surprise comes as a further revelation of character. The Gorman is flanked by two tales of missing kids. ``The Wall'' is the first starring vehicle for Rae Kelleher, an investigator in Marcia Muller's All Souls Legal Cooperative, whose search for Adrian Conway leads her to murder, an elaborate shoplifting scam, and—courtesy of a wall Adrian revealingly decorated in her room at home—an unexpected hiding place. ``Kinsmen'' takes Bill Pronzini's Nameless Detective to California's northeast backwoods, where the closemouthed little metropolis of Creekside is determined to keep the secret Allison Shay shared with her boyfriend Rob Compton that explains why they vanished after checking out of the Northern Comfort Cabins. Sturdy, professional work from all hands, with something extra from Gorman: altogether an auspicious inaugural.