The Singing Stones

The singing stones on a mountain top in Virginia's Blue Ridge country provide the eerie atmosphere of MWA Grand Master Whitney's 34th novel, after Rainbow in the Mist. Narrator Lynn McLeod, a child psychologist, comes here to help Jilly, the 10-year-old daughter of her ex-husband, architect Stephen Asch, and his second wife, exotic dancer Oriana. Having answered the plea of psychic Julian Forster and his wife Vivian, Lynn agrees to counsel Jilly, who is traumatized after witnessing a murder and the fall that crippled her father. Among the many members of the household, the Forsters are the child's only source of support. Stephen, sunken into apathy, ignores her; Oriana is off pursuing her career. When other murders follow, as well as attempts to kill Jilly and Lynn, Julian persuades the psychologist to ``regress'' into a former life under hypnotism, the key to detecting a killer among reincarnated souls. Implausible and confusing at best, the mystery ends on a blatant contrivance but will probably be as popular as its predecessors. Paperback rights to Fawcett. (Mar.)