Crossed Wires

Finley, the appealing heroine of this offbeat first novel, inhabits the futuristic milieu of those PC buffs who use extensive computer networks to chat with close pals they've neither seen nor heard. Impaired hearing has limited her social life, but she has an absorbing job ferreting out facts and criminal patterns on her terminal at the National Crime Information and Analysis Center. This research hits home when Finley starts tracking a serial killer who is culling victims from her own electronic bulletin board system--and who targets her as the next corpse. Unfortunately, Simpson now requires Finley (thought smart by her co-workers) to perform such stupid, look-out-behind-you acts that the reader is way ahead of her in spotting the murderer. But the computer procedures are clearly explained and fascinating, and, in spite of patches of arty prose, the action scenes are winners--graphic, forceful and some of them quite funny. (Aug.)