Charlene, the sweet young thing at the center of Thomas Perry's new novel, gets her kicks by killing men. She toys with us, enjoys such limited pleasures as we provide, then kills us because we annoy the hell out of her with our selfish, insensitive, boorish, sex-crazed behavior. To a male reader, this woman is a dangerous psychopath in need of serious corrective action, but female readers may find her more sympathetic. Certainly, if substantial numbers of women followed Charlene's lethal example, we fellows might become more apt to remember birthdays, send flowers and master toilet-seat etiquette.

In the novel's opening scene, Charlene, then calling herself Tanya, blows out the brains of a computer salesman named Dennis because she doesn't like his laugh, because he always tips waiters exactly 15 percent and because he "was not a sincerely appreciative lover." Dennis's demise occurs in Portland, Ore., and sexy, brainy homicide detective Catherine Hobbes is soon on the case. Meanwhile, we learn that Dennis was the cousin of a Los Angeles mobster who feels obliged to find out who killed his kinsman. The mobster hires Joe Pitt, a private investigator and former lawman, to examine the case. Pitt, a good-looking, charming fellow who tends to gamble away his earnings, hastens to Portland and is soon bewitched by detective Hobbes. She thinks he's pretty cute, too, but is mightily offended that he would work for a criminal.

The rest of "Nightlife" is dedicated to answering two questions. First, can Hobbes and Pitt stop Charlene's one-woman crime wave? Second, can the raffish Pitt overcome Hobbes's scruples and win her heart? Charlene's murders are marginally more interesting than the two cops' romance. Perry equips Charlene with an unhappy childhood to explain her naughty ways. She had a sluttish mother who brought home abusive men and entered her in beauty pageants. What's worse, the kids in high school were mean to her. Still in her teens, she was taken in hand by a rich lawyer who taught her how to dress, talk and behave like a proper lady. When he traded her in for a newer model, Charlene began her life of crime.

Her M.O. is to meet men in upscale bars or restaurants and let nature take its course. Because she is smart, sexy and glib, men flock to her. She could easily marry some rich fellow and stop killing people. The problem is that men keep annoying her. As Charlene sees it, it's their own darn fault if she kills them -- they ask for it. One fellow, for example, in a moment of post-coital contemplation, goes to stand on the balcony of their hotel room. Thus ignored, what was Charlene to do but toss him over the railing? Killing men, she has decided, is actually more fun than sex.

Meanwhile, Catherine Hobbes is proving to be about the sharpest detective you've ever encountered. Time after time, she has insights into Charlene's behavior that elude her male colleagues. Hobbes, indeed, is a supercop who can dodge bullets, read minds and probably leap tall buildings in a single bound. Charlene, who learns from watching TV that the detective is a threat to her, is predictably annoyed. A woman shouldn't be so mean to another woman, she figures, so she heads for Portland to stalk her nemesis.

Perry introduces some minor characters who are more interesting than his leads. At one point, Charlene is at the mercy of a 16-year-old boy who is crazier than she is -- he delivers pizza, dreams of sex and wants to murder his parents. At first, she resists his demands for sex ("It would seem weird. I'd be embarrassed"), then she finally relents. But the lad pays a price for his presumption. Another time, Charlene is being hunted by a hired killer, of whom Joe Pitt says, "He goes down the rabbit hole, and when he comes back he's got blood on his teeth, and there's no rabbit problem anymore."

Inevitably, as woman killer stalks woman cop, Perry contrives to put Hobbes in a hopeless situation from which only a miracle can save her. Alas, both the situation and its resolution are simply silly. "Nightlife" is readable and fitfully interesting, but, in a market flooded with serial-killer sagas, it's too contrived to be outstanding. If you want to read a first-rate novel about a female serial killer, try Lawrence Sanders's "The Third Deadly Sin" or John Sandford's "Certain Prey" and "Mortal Prey." Legions of insensitive American men may need shooting, but we deserve more persuasive characters than nutty little Charlene to do the honors.

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