The Murder Game

In his 37th book, Allen, the greatest show-biz autodidact since Artie Shaw and arguably TV's only Renaissance man, has crafted a tricky, well-made whodunit. His protagonist, Steve Allen, narrates. Steve and his wife Jayne Meadows, are asked to be panelists on a revived TV game show, ``The Murder Game.'' At the reunion party an elderly, slightly dotty actress and panelist takes a deadly fall downstairs. Learning that the show's ex-producer also suffered a fatal accident in his retirement village, Jayne pushes Steve to probe further. There are other odd, ``accidental'' deaths, and as bodies pile up, so do suspects: The smoothie producer? The ambitious TV exec? Her ne'er-do-well brother? The aging beauty? Her young husband? The rising soap opera starlet? Her boyfriend? Steve and Jayne almost end up trapped in a yacht heading out to sea on autopilot, but they manage to unmask the killer on live TV. ``Steve Allen'' here is just the way we know him: bright, urbane, witty and (just a tad disappointingly) good-natured toward Tinseltown. But he is still charming, wonderfully literate company. (Mar.)