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TV producer Ariel Gold steps in as on-air investigative reporter in her somewhat disappointing third outing, a slapdash follow-up to Double Take, which left Gold suffering traumatic amnesia after the murder of her twin sister. The first few chapters recap the events of the previous novel: on a pleasure cruise, Eve Spurling goes overboard after an argument with her husband, Jack; only a hung jury has kept him from a murder conviction. Now Gold looks again into the Spurling case for her television show Open File. Additional tension is supplied by the fact that Gold interviewed Spurling during his trial two years ago. She suspects he knows things about her she can't remember about herself. Mercer uses this suspicion to manipulate the reader's interest but never delivers any clear answers for all the teasing--even after Gold and Spurling begin an affair. Because Gold does not have a past, Mercer might have made her a new character, but does not, with the exception of Gold's weight loss, new wardrobe and appropriation of her dead twin's quirky sense of humor. Although the novel's first half makes smooth reading, extraneous characters clutter the stage in the second, and readers are likely to lose interest before the extremely untidy denouement. (Oct.) FYI: Double Take will be released simultaneously in paperback by Pocket.