Suspense, wit, and one not-so-neat ending

Hard Truth
By Nevada Barr
Putnam, 336 pp., $24.95

The Sign of the Book
By John Dunning
Scribner, 368 pp., $25

Missing Persons
By Stephen White
Dutton, 352 pp., $25.95

Three mystery novels set in Colorado explore different parts of the state, as well as different corners of the genre.

Nevada Barr's ''Hard Truth" begins with outdoor adventure. Two strong female characters -- Barr's series sleuth, National Parks ranger Anna Pigeon, and recently injured rock climber Heath Jarrod -- have intellect and physical stamina that make them worthy opponents for a pervert who kidnaps, tortures, and brainwashes young girls.

Heath and her aunt, physician Gwendolyn Littleton, are camping in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Awash in self-pity after an accident that has left her nearly paralyzed from the waist down, Heath rolls away from the campfire. In the darkness, her wheelchair founders when she literally runs into two terrified young girls, scraped and bruised and wearing only their underwear.

Heath bonds with the younger of the two girls, ''the limpet," who gloms on to Heath and refuses to let go. It soon becomes clear that these girls have escaped one torment only to be returned to another -- a family compound ruled by a tyrannical, religious father who dominates his children and the women who bear them. The parents refuse to allow the girls to answer investigators' questions, or to be examined by doctors.

Heath develops a grudging respect for Anna as they both seek to unravel what happened, and to find a third youngster, who remains missing. Barr excels at bringing alive a punishing and breathtaking landscape of craggy peaks, lakes, and glacial moraines.

Whatever you do, don't take this book on a camping trip and expect to get any sleep. It's loaded with suspense and heart-pumping action; but beware, there's also a high ''ick" factor. Readers who prefer not to read about tortured children and animals may want to wait for Barr's next book.

Cliff Janeway is a former Denver cop turned antiquarian book dealer with a sideline in private investigation. He's a smart aleck who bristles at authority, and one of the pleasures of this fourth series novel by John Dunning is watching Janeway butt heads with authority figures.

In ''The Sign of the Book" he gets plenty of opportunity to strut his stuff as he investigates the murder of Bobby Marshall, an old flame of attorney Erin D'Angelo's, who is also Janeway's business partner and main squeeze. Bobby's wife, Laura, has confessed, and asked Erin to defend her.

Janeway travels to the ironically named Paradise, an isolated Colorado town that's no more than a wide-ish spot in the road, ostensibly to assess whether the murder victim's collection of signed books might be valuable enough to pay for Laura's defense. A crime-scene investigation botched by an obstructive deputy sheriff has Janeway and Erin wondering if Laura confessed to protect her autistic son.

The plot works, though it involves a few too many clues observed through closed windows and conveniently overheard conversations for my taste. There are two twists that I didn't see coming, an intriguing insider's look at the business of authenticating collectible autographs, and plenty of smart, funny dialogue from an appealing and thoroughly human main character.

When someone asks Janeway what he's going to do next, he replies: ''What I always do. Grope, hope, wander in the wilderness, play it by ear."

Boulder is where Stephen White's psychologist Alan Gregory hangs his shingle. ''Missing Persons," White's 13th series novel, begins when Gregory finds his friend and colleague, Hannah Grant, dead in her office. Illness, accident, or murder? The evidence is contradictory. A few days later, on Christmas Eve, 14-year-old Mallory Miller disappears from her home. It is exactly eight years since 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey was murdered and the famously botched investigation of her death began. Is it a coincidence that the missing Mallory was a patient of Hannah Grant's and possibly a friend of JonBenet's?

There's much to enjoy in this book: the gentle, humorous rendering of the family formed by Gregory, his wife, and their delightful 5-year-old daughter; the defogging of psychological diagnoses; a charming protagonist who is a thoroughly good man, tied up in knots by the ethics of his profession.

The plot resembles a house-that-Jack-built, as it burgeons out in one direction, then another, haring off to Las Vegas in search of Mallory's schizophrenic mother, then after a schizoid possible witness, then after a mysterious neighbor. The professional ethics of doctor-patient confidentiality straitjacket the protagonist when Gregory ends up privy to information he can't share with investigators.

I kept waiting for that satisfying ''click" when all the disparate pieces fit together, but it never came. On the other hand, perhaps that's the strength of this novel. Instead of the tidiness we expect from mystery fiction, the story mimics the messiness of life, rife with unexpected coincidence.

Hallie Ephron is co-author of ''Guilt," the fifth Dr. Peter Zak psychological mystery thriller by G. H. Ephron.