The Catalyst

This near-perfect puzzler, written with intelligence and laced with wit, features an eminently appealing protagonist. He is Welsh professor of mathematics John Dobie--amiably sexy, decent and honorable, and endearingly vague except when he's discussing an abstruse mathematical concept. When two murdered women turn up in his bed within the space of a few hours, his perceptive intellect transforms him from the most likely suspect into shrewd amateur sleuth. Dobie not only solves the case by developing syllogistic chains on an IBM computer, he also stumbles into an affecting romance with Dr. Kate Coyle, Cardiff's pinch-hitting pathologist. Cory ( The Circe Complex ) is a Briton living in Cyprus. (July)