High Constable

The third historical mystery, after The Kingsbridge Plot , in the saga of New York's Tonneman family is a meandering tale set in the early years of the 19th century. The pseudonymous husband-and-wife authors (Annette Meyers writes the Smith and Wetzon series; Martin Meyers, the Patrick Hardy stories) deliver period fare more successfully than plot. A ``New-York'' city official and a cashbox vanish; bodies are found, and suspects are trailed, questioned and occasionally beaten before the story is gorily resolved, almost by accident. Each chapter begins with a reproduction of an actual newspaper ad, and one scene cameos DeWitt Clinton, Washington Irving, Lorenzo da Ponte (Mozart's erstwhile librettist) and Clement Moore. Aaron Burr appears briefly. Gangs roam the poorer streets of the city, which, we're repeatedly told, ends at ``Chambers-Street.'' While a killer seems to focus on the family of Peter Tonneman, nobody seems more nasty and brutish than real-life High Constable Jacob Hays, the city's top policeman, who, the authors note, is said to have invented the mode of questioning known as the third degree. (Sept.)