DEAD CRAZY

Pocket, 1989. Very Good. Last seen in Marriage Is Murder , Jenny Cain, goodhearted but admirably dis ciplined director of the Port Frederick, Mass., Civic Foundation, skillfull y utilizes intuition and steely nerves to solve two brutal slayings. When M aryDell Paine, wealthy and pompous do-gooder, appeals to the foundation for funds to renovate an old church basement as a recreation hall for former m ental patients, it quickly becomes apparent that her altruism is tempered w ith urgent need. Her brother Kitt, a paranoid schizophrenic, has become a d rain on the family's patience and finances. Jenny finds the site to be idea l, and begins to canvass the area, discovering a number of neighbors whose bizarre reactions to the renovation both provoke and intrigue her. When one of the neighbors is found slashed to death in the basement, suspicion fall s on Kitt, and when another homeowner is discovered murdered in her living room, the search for Kitt intensifies, bringing Jenny into close cooperatio n with the able local police. A well-controlled sense of the absurd runs be neath the surface of the narrative, and Pickard is also deft at sharply ren dering her characters' strong personalities. The plot eventually widens to include extortion and blackmail, all adeptly ferreted out by Jenny, as inde pendent and imaginative as ever in her fifth mystery.