Crime fiction devotees like nothing better than a serial killer, and two more have been let loose on the bookshop shelves. SIMON RITCHIE counts the bodies.

Dialogues Of The Dead by Reginald Hill (Harper Collins, price £16.99)

THE quintessential English short story competition will never be the same after Reginald Hill's latest enjoyable Dalziel and Pascoe crime romp.

An AA patrol man is found drowned, then a student dies in what appears to be a straightforward motorbike accident - two news items which make a few column inches in the Mid-Yorkshire Gazette. Then two so-called Dialogues are sent to the Gazette's short story competition, which is being co-ordinated by staff at Mid-Yorkshire Library. The writer seems to be claiming responsibility for the deaths.

Rookie detective constable 'Hat' Bowler, who first gets hold of the Dialogues, only pretends to take it seriously to get closer to one of the librarians, Raina Pomona, whose job it is to read the competition entries.

It's only when the story is leaked to a television company and a third murder takes place, that Detective Superinten-dent Andy Dalziel and his sidekick, Detective Inspector Peter Pascoe agree that there is a serial killer on the loose. A killer dubbed the Wordman.

Soon the district's morgue is full with the bodies of the great (and not so great) and good of Mid-Yorkshire life.

After each murder a new Dialogue arrives at the library, even after the competition deadline has expired.

There are plenty of suspects, shoals of red herrings and many expletives as the gruff, no-nonsense Dalziel tries to unravel the riddle of the Wordman. Highly entertaining.

Deviant Ways by Chris Mooney (Simon & Schuster, price £10)

The home of the serial killer is, of course, the United States. And while Yorkshire is in the grip of the Wordman, the Sandman is terrorising Boston.

In Deviant Ways, Chris Mooney's gripping first novel, former FBI profiler Jack Casey is struggling to rebuild his shattered life.

After he was forced to watch a psychopath slay his pregnant wife, he quit the FBI - after putting the said madman behind bars - to become a detective in Boston. But his dream of a quiet life is shattered when the Sandman turns his new world into a nightmare.

The Sandman, who has escaped from the FBI's top secret Behaviour Modification Programme, where he was subject to numerous highly-controversial medical tests, is waging a personal war on those doctors and nurses who made his life hell.

Casey becomes involved when he responds to a cryptic emergency call from the Sandman and finds an entire family butchered.

But that's not the end of it. When he tries to collect evidence, the house explodes. The Sandman has an arsenal of bomb-making equipment and hi-tech weaponry which would keep a small army happy for years.

In his hunt for the Sandman, Casey enlists the help of another ex-FBI profiler, Malcolm Fletcher, who is on the run from his former employers. But can they stop the Sandman before more families are slaughtered?

Deviant Ways is an excellent high-powered, edge-of-your-seat debut by Mooney.

If you enjoyed Thomas Harris's Red Dragon and Silence Of The Lambs, you'll love this.