PAX'S CRIME DRAMA TOUCHED BY AN AMATEUR.

Byline: David Kronke

WITH CHARACTERS cavorting about in underthings, suggestions of marital infidelity and the gratuitous deployment of Nastassja Kinski, the murder mystery ``All Around the Town'' rates as pretty saucy by Pax standards. Said titillation, however, doesn't make it otherwise engaging - it's a prime example of a story utterly undone by a key role rendered in a rudderlessly histrionic performance.

Based on a crime novel by best-selling scribbler Mary Higgins Clark, whose books oftentimes flag wrongdoers with veritable neon lights, the story focuses on two sisters, Sarah (Andrea Roth) and Laurie (Kim Shraner). When they were children, Laurie was abducted under older sister Sarah's watch, only to return two vexing years later. That traumatic memory returns to haunt them in adulthood, when their parents die in an auto accident.

Sarah is a district attorney and Laurie is a college student. Laurie's empathetic English professor is found murdered, and since she is suspected of having had an affair with him, suffers from multiple personalities - and, oh, by the way, is found caked with his blood and the murder weapon in her possession - she's naturally pegged for the crime.

Of course, it's not that simple. Laurie has long been plagued by nightmares involving a similar knife, the victim's wife (Kinski) is a bitterly jealous woman and there's the not-inconsequential issue of a bizarre self-help guru (Tobias Moretti) who suspiciously turns up as all these shenanigans are playing out.

Such a setup is serviceably intriguing, but newcomer Shraner's over- the-top performance renders the melodrama's other qualities moot. She's hardly the only culprit: Director Paolo Barzman does nothing to modulate her hopelessly conceived role, encouraging such ham-fistedness with overwrought camerawork and editing. Kinski and the rest of the cast barely figure in, and such blatant misdirection leaves sleuths in the audience with no other conclusion but the crime's ultimate solution.

ALL AROUND THE TOWN - Two stars

What: A college professor is murdered and one of his students is a suspect in this thriller adapted from the Mary Higgins Clark novel.

Starring: Nastassja Kinski.

Where: Pax (Channel 57).

When: 9 tonight; also 9 p.m. Sunday.