AUDIO BOOKS\Koontz's 'Intensity' thrills more with less.

Byline: Dick Lochte and Tom Nolan Special to the Daily News

At a time when many best-selling novelists feel it necessary to write longer and longer books, Dean Koontz has decided to scale back. His newest work, "Intensity" (Random House Audio books, 12 hours, unabridged; $39.95, read by Kate Burton), is a lean, mean thrill machine in which an extremely adaptable young woman battles a shrewd and powerful psychotic killer for the life of a helpless teen-ager.

Koontz, who has utilized a much larger canvas in the past, and used it well with dimensional characters and intricate plotting, this time narrows his focus to just the two adversaries. And a fascinating pair they are - the self-sufficient Chyna Shepherd, whose childhood with a sociopathic mom and a series of violent "uncles" has prepared her for nearly anything life can toss her way, and the dreamy serial killer Edgler Vess, whose desire for "intensity' moves him to acts of incomparable violence and depravity.

There are other characters - most notably a pack of Doberman pinschers almost as bloodthirsty as their master, Vess - but it is the two combatants who command our attention as they move across the author's dark but moral landscape, alternating roles as hunter and hunted.

Actress Kate Burton does a fine job of interpreting Koontz's meticulously crafted prose, adding just the proper edge of determination to Chyna's struggle for justice or lowering her voice to a soft, intimate croon that adds to the chilling effect of Vess' horrific meanderings. You may want to save this one for daylight listening.

After four novels about LAPD maverick Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch that have been praised by President Clinton as well as by critics, former crime reporter Michael Connelly switches to a new protagonist in the thriller "The Poet" (Brilliance Corp., 15 hours, unabridged, $25.95, read by Buck Schirner). When his twin brother, a Denver homicide detective, dies, apparently by his own hand, Rocky Mountain News reporter Jack McEvoy is moved to write an article about the pressures that drive lawmen to suicide. What his research tells him, however, is that a devious serial killer is at work, arranging the elaborate assassinations of police officers and leaving behind snippets of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry.

Connelly has fashioned a very trick mystery, with more twists and turns than a bumper car ride. But above and beyond the entertaining game of whodunit, there are other treats to be had. Thanks to Connelly's previous occupation, his depiction of the ups and downs of newspaper life is as credible as it is intriguing. The apparently informed, focused descriptions of FBI agents on the trail of a multiple murderer are fascinating. And narrator Schirner is enough of a pro to handle an assortment of accents and vocal shifts without skipping a beat.

If the fictional slayers of "Intensity" and "The Poet" aren't chilling enough for you, allow us to recommend "Mindhunter" (Simon & Schuster Audio, three hours, abridged), written by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker, and read by Douglas, a 25-year-plus FBI veteran who pioneered criminal personality profiling.

A real-life supersleuth with the unique ability to tune in on the mental wavelengths of sociopaths, Douglas believes that jail cell interviews with convicted mass murderers might lead to information that would help speed future arrests and convictions. The success of his studies pushed the reluctant FBI into accepting the use of behavioral science and criminal profiling evidenced in Connelly's novel.

Employing an easygoing, casual style of narration, Douglas offers some insight into his personal life, but concentrates mainly (in this adaptation) on the business of unlocking homicidal secrets. Among the interview subjects he discusses: Richard Speck (who was quick to point out that he was a mass murderer, not a serial killer), the Son of Sam, Charles Manson and John Wayne Gacy. A fascinating, spooky three hours.

Possibly prompted by last year's film, "Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle," Penguin has published "Complete Stories" by Dorothy Parker and an accompanying audio package "Selected Stories" (Penguin Audiobooks, three hours, $16.95, read by Elaine Stritch). Included in the cassette collection is the acerbic author's most famous short story, "Big Blonde," which chronicles the downwardly spiraling life of a woman as she moves from man to man, from too much booze to suicide attempts.

Stritch, a wonderfully droll actress, smoothly narrates "Blonde" and other observed character studies such as "Song of the Shirt" and "Mr. Durant." But it is the first-person pieces, like "Diary of a New York Lady," in which the shallowness of a socialite's life is underlined by her daily jottings, and "The Garter," in which Parker finds herself alone in a crowd of partygoers, suffering the added indignity of a broken garter, that Stritch's full performing talents come into play.

Viewers of Ken Burns' 1990 PBS series on the Civil War became well-acquainted with Shelby Foote and his sparkling ability to bring that great conflict to vivid life through words. Long before that documentary, Foote was recognized as a premier historian of the War between the States, as author of a three-volume work published over a two-decade span. "The Beleaguered City: The Vicksburg Campaign" (Modern Library Audio, 10-1/2 hours, unabridged, $29.95, read by the author) is a section from the second volume of that trilogy, originally published in 1963. It is a vibrant narrative, as vital as a crackerjack novel and pithy as a monologue by a village sage. Foote reads it all in the same elegant conversational manner that characterized his filmed discourse.

The rivalry of Union generals Grant and McLernand, one of Grant's alcoholic benders, a problematic naval campaign and the odd camaraderie of adjacent Union and Confederate troops during the Vicksburg siege are some of the strands weaving through this engrossing chronicle. "The Beleaguered City" is a splendid audio version of a distinguished work. This nicely packaged eight-cassette set includes a booklet of battlefield maps.

"Dinosaur in a Haystack" (Dove Audio, six hours of selected excerpts, $24.95, read by Meredith MacRae and Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) is a stimulating collection by Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and natural historian whose journalistic essays mix science, storytelling, opinion and a sprinkling of humor somewhat in the manner of Montaigne.

These pieces are not casual listening; they demand concentration but return the pleasure of following a keen (if often pleasantly meandering) argument full circle. Topics in the dozen or so selections here range from prehistoric creatures to today's popular culture, with Gould noting how his scientific specialties have been applied (or misapplied) to the subject at hand.

One essay examines the insights regarding human nature and prejudice dramatized in Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" and laments their simplification and perversion by a host of Hollywood horror-thrillers. "Poe's Greatest Hit" defends a text on shells and mollusks that Poe's biographers have dismissed as hackwork. "The Smoking Gun of Eugenics" resurrects an embarrassing instance of a respected scientist's denial of a link between tobacco and lung cancer.

The "deep sexism" of the Victorian age is exemplified in the career of one Mary Roberts, a once-popular but now "invisible" science writer. References to artists past and present - from Shakespeare and Gilbert and Sullivan to Michael Crichton and Prince - enliven Gould's text.

The writer is eloquently horrified by the fake and "claptrap Darwinism" employed by German technocrats to justify their "final solution," of World War II.

He is most amusing when speaking of the "evolutionary spin-doctoring" found in certain science discussions. He is entertainingly ambivalent on the "dino-mania" of '90s youngsters, as commercialized through the "Jurassic Park" movie, a film Gould praises for its spectacular special effects but whose script he condemns (in high dino-dudgeon) as "pap and drivel of the worst kind." Actors MacRae and Zimbalist give these interesting essays clear and energetic readings.

"Time Present, Time Past," by Bill Bradley (Random House Audio Books, four hours, abridged, $23.50, read by the author), is subtitled "a memoir." It does indeed include pertinent anecdotes from the author's years as a U.S. senator and from earlier times as a Rhodes scholar and professional basketball player.

But the autobiographical elements serve the larger purpose of explaining the New Jersey senator's current political beliefs and concerns. "Time Present, Time Past" seems as much platform paper and stump speech as autobiography.

Democrat Bradley, who won't seek re-election this year, argues for a renewal of his party's spirit and a rethinking of its stance in the face of contemporary realities. The endangered middle class, the abandoned lower class, racial polarity, irresponsible business policies, and the need for smart and sensitive long-term national planning are some of the issues Bradley addresses.

The senator seems a man of intelligence, compassion, principle and common sense. And, if his narration is a bit too stilted for him to have a career as an audio-book performer, he gets his compelling message across nonetheless.