THERE ARE NO GHOSTS IN THE SOVIET UNION

Hill's dark humor and crisp delivery are on solid display in this variegated collection—which features literary and occult surprises along with the more familiar sort of British, black-comic crime. The title novella, set in Moscow, is a sly teaser, droll yet grave—which begins when three witnesses (all sane) claim to have seen an oddly dressed man disappear through the solid floor of an office-building elevator! Inspector Lev Chislenko, urged to sweep this mystery under the bureaucratic rug, goes ghost-hunting instead—especially when he learns that a young Party leader died in an elevator accident on the same date 50 years before. . .Three other suspense items are effective on a more modest, routine level: "Bring Back the Cat!," in which a neophyte West Indian shamus finds a missing kitty (and a dead boy) in posh suburbia; the grim "The Bull Ring," which involves brutal Army training (circa 1916), a sadistic (latently homosexual) corporal, and a recruit's revenge; and "Crowded Hour," about a humdrum robbery that leads, ironically, to double-murder. "Auteur Theory" is a more whimsical, show-bizzy, near-silly diversion—narrated by the actor who's playing Sgt. Pascoe in a film version of Hill's own Advancement of Learning. (Among the jokes: the maniacal reactions of author Hill to an increasingly free adaptation.) And "Poor Emma" drily imagines what happened after Austen's heroine married Mr. Knightley: money troubles, feuds over family land, adultery. . .and Zola-esque murder. Clever plotting, unforced amusement, and a few fine shivers: solid work from the reliable author of the Dalziel/Pascoe procedurals.