Palace Coup

Moss's devastating, bruising bio delivers paydirt as it follows a sinister trail of lawsuits, takeovers, big deals and shady doings by New York real estate tycoons Harry and Leona Helmsley. His souped-up prose can turn wickedly sly: ``It seems that Leona had discovered the Fifth Avenue way of bargain shopping: don't pay sales taxes.'' A business reporter for Newsday , Moss makes Leona, 68, the villain of this cotton-to-cashmere tale of greed and thirst for power: the ambitious hatter's daughter from Brooklyn (born Lena Rosenthal) comes off as a tyrannical, ambushing manager, a gold-digger whose grab for ultimate control over the Helmsley empire may prove its undoing. Her reserved, workaholic hubby is seen as a hated landlord who spent a lifetime figuring out ways to pay as low wages and taxes as possible. And the posturing, litigious couple had a knack for ``racking up enemies like bowling pins.'' (Apr.)