"Lifelines" By CJ Lyons, Berkley Books, $7.99

CJ Lyons is the pen name of a State College native who quit her career as a pediatric emergency physician to write full time.

If this debut novel is any indication, her decision could be a gift to readers of multiple genres. Set in a Pittsburgh hospital with the hallmarks of a medical thriller, the book's subplots include romance, a fringe religious group's campaign against a gay rights group, citywide violence over the Fourth of July holiday and a climatic attempt to level the medical center.

The novel opens July 1, Dr. Lydia Fiore's first day at Angels of Mercy Medical Center, as an emergency room physician. One of her patients, a young man showing nothing but abrasions after being hit by a car, dies.

He was the leader of the gay rights group as well as the son of the hospital's chief of surgery. Believing he was poisoned, Fiore vows to find the murderer to save her job and her reputation, but her quest looks impossible as more deaths occur under mysterious circumstances that also could be attributed to her.

Lydia is a well-drawn heroine, the writing is strong and the plot could have been taken out of today's headlines.

Calling Pittsburgh one of her favorite cities in a letter to readers, Lyons admits to "redesigning some of its geography," but she seeks forgiveness so charmingly, it's hard not to forgive her.

"The Winter of Her Discontent" by Kathryn Miller Haines, (Harper, $13.95)

Broadway performer Rosie Winter returns for another adventure in the second mystery novel by Kathryn Miller Haines, Pittsburgh actress, director and award-winning playwright.

The result is another bravura performance by both author and heroine. Picking up where "The War Against Miss Winter" left off, the book is set in 1943. Rosie's boyfriend, Jack, is missing in action on the European front and at home, her pal Al, a mob enforcer, is jailed for the murder of his actress girlfriend.

To work on Al's case, Rosie joins the cast of a new musical called "Goin' South," the play in which the dead woman had a part. When Rosie isn't detecting, rehearsing or trying to find out more about Jack, she entertains troops at the famed Stage Door Canteen.

As in her first, Haynes skillfully juggles the plot and sub-plots, weaving them into one seamless tapestry. Her characters -- both good guys and bad -- are colorfully and sharply drawn, and she somehow avoids resorting to Runyonesque caricatures.

The best part of the novel is the way Haines recreates New York City and its denizens at war in 1943. Women don't "polish" their nails, they "varnish" them. Their "hair was rolled in the front and loose in the back -- a style that the slicks claimed was the new look but which could make even Ginger Rogers look homely."

With details like that, it wouldn't be all that surprising to look up from the book and see blackout curtains over the windows.