MURDER AS PERFORMANCE ART CHALLENGES MYSTERIOUS COP.

Byline: Linda Litchfield Special to the Daily News

``Killing Critics'' by Carol O'Connell (Putnam's; $23.95).

Newcomer Carol O'Connell was nominated for an Edgar for ``Mallory's Oracle,'' the first book in her offbeat series about one of the most unusual protagonists in crime fiction today - Mallory, a beautiful, brilliant computer whiz with a mysterious past (as a child, she was found on the streets and adopted by a New York police detective; he was murdered in ``Mallory's Oracle''). She is also emotionless and ruthless in her pursuit of wrongdoers, often given to illegal shortcuts that make her superiors in the NYPD very nervous.

In ``Killing Critics,'' she is trying to solve the murder of critic Dean Starr at an art gallery exhibit, a death made to look like performance art. The crime may be connected to a double murder at another gallery a decade before, in which the two bodies were mutilated to resemble a grotesque exhibit. Although the first crime was supposedly solved, Mallory's adopted father always had doubts that the ``madman'' who confessed was actually guilty. Influential people want to keep the old case closed, but it is anything but closed; its viciousness destroyed the lives of all it touched.

Mere description doesn't do justice to O'Connell's intricate plotting, tortured characters, and acid commentary on the corruption and lunatic pretentiousness of the Manhattan art scene. In each book, too, we learn more about Mallory's past, and she is the greatest mystery of all. Here's hoping it will be unraveled in future books.

``Shred of Evidence'' by Jill McGown (Fawcett Columbine; $21).

Although a number of people write first-rate classic English mysteries, not all of them are equally well-known on this side of the Atlantic. One of the best of those who deserve to be more famous is Jill McGown. She has created a number of convoluted puzzlers that defy the reader to figure out the solution before the final chapter. Many of them feature Chief Inspector Lloyd and his girlfriend/co-worker, Detective Inspector Judy Hill, whose rocky long-term romance is getting increasingly serious (as in marriage).

In ``Shred of Evidence'' the author's setting is an English high school where the investigation into the murder of a promiscuous 15-year-old student is complicated by rumors that she was having an affair with one of her teachers. Suspicion centers on the attractive star athlete/gym teacher Colin Cochrane who was running in the vicinity at the time of the murder and has been receiving anonymous erotic letters that may have been written by the dead girl.

Lloyd and Hill must unravel a surprisingly complex crime in which everyone seems to have something to hide: teachers afraid of charges of statutory rape, their worried wives, and students fearful of the police and guilt-ridden over their adolescent sexual fantasies.

``Soultown'' by Mercedes Lambert (Viking; $21.95).

Mysteries set in Los Angeles have usually focused on only a few areas of the city, but in recent years it's as if affirmative action has hit the hard-boiled Southern California crime novel. Writers in search of fresh settings and plots have been turning to minority neighborhoods for inspiration.

After an auspicious debut in ``Dogtown,'' the author sets ``her'' (actually Lambert is a man) new book in Koreatown, an area still recovering from the recent riots.

Struggling attorney Whitney Logan is once again trying to rehabilitate her client/apparently sole friend Lupe Ramos, an unrepentant Latina hooker. Just released from jail, Lupe enlists Whitney's help in getting her young son back from her brother's new Korean girl friend, Kim John Oh.

The two women no sooner get to Koreatown than they witness the robbery of a group of old women at the home of Kim's godmother: One of them is killed by the masked thief who takes a large sum of money - the women's investment - and a mysterious antique box. Suspicious of the police, Kim's godmother hires Whitney to find the missing cash and the box; she fears that one of the other women may have been behind the crime.

What ``Soultown'' lacks in plot is more than compensated for by its portrayal of a little-known city within a city where a highly traditional culture is struggling to survive despite the westernization of its young people, crime and the incursions of other immigrant groups. The money-hungry Lupe is refreshingly original and amusing. However, Whitney is rather unsympathetic. She's not an uncommon type: an upper-class WASP who had an unhappy childhood and hates her family's class/ethnic background so much that she has embraced its exact opposite and felt ``disappointment when the riots were over.'' Her naivete and patronizing attitude alienate her from the very people she wants to help so much.

``Death on a Vineyard Beach'' by Philip R. Craig (Scribner; $21).

Ex-cop J.W. Jackson (pensioned off because of a job-related injury) leads an easygoing, enviable life on Martha's Vineyard, fishing and clamming and occasionally solving a murder. Newly married, he and his bride, Zee, are on their honeymoon in Boston when they happen to save the life of aging gangster Luciano Marcus.

A Vineyard resident, Marcus hires Jackson to find the young man who tried to shoot him. Although Marcus is retired, he has no shortage of enemies, even on the island (the would-be killer's gun was stolen from a house there). The local Indians believe that Marcus illegally bought a cranberry bog that is rightfully theirs and are trying to get it back. Jackson's investigation leads him to wonder if the killer is not an enemy at all, but someone a lot closer to Marcus.

Craig summers on Martha's Vineyard and knows the island well. Reading his books is like a pleasant holiday, visiting old friends (his recurring characters) and enjoying a popular resort area, all without leaving the comfort of your favorite chair.

``Death at Sandringham House'' by C.C. Benison (Bantam; $5.50).

Mystery fans not tired of the British royal family may enjoy an unusually good paperback novel set at the country mansion where Queen Elizabeth and her family celebrate the Christmas holidays every year.

The queen, her sister Princess Margaret and members of her staff (including the series' protagonist, Canadian housemaid Jane Bee) discover the body of a woman dressed and made up to look like Her Majesty for a yuletide pantomime play satirizing royalty. Only this corpse is also wearing a real tiara that was stolen from the Duchess of Windsor nearly 50 years ago and has been missing ever since.

There is no shortage of suspects. In addition to the mysterious tiara, the victim loved to flaunt her expensive fur coat and had been receiving threatening letters from a local group of animal-rights fanatics. Twenty years before, she had seduced her sister's fiance before she left England for the greener pastures of the United States. Back home for only a few weeks, she had once again disrupted the life of her sister, now a housekeeper at Sandringham, and her husband, an estate gamekeeper.

With the help of the intrepid Jane, the queen herself takes a suitably discreet interest in the investigation.

The author has an incredible insider's knowledge of the workings of the queen's household (her previous book was set in Buckingham Palace). Besides the fascinating portrayal of the backstairs intrigue and gossip, Benison has created a multilayered traditional mystery with the requisite number of red herrings, twists and turns.