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Thomas McCall. Hyperion Books, $19.95 (259pp) ISBN 978-1-56282-864-6

In this gritty but improbable first mystery, one-legged Chicago police lieutenant Nora Callum struggles to solve a case involving elderly Russians who are haunted by their pasts. Called to the side of a critically wounded woman at Holy Name Cathedral, Callum can find neither motive for nor witnesses to the shooting. Then a mysterious old man storms into the station house, raving about someone following him, only to vanish; his bullet-torn body is discovered the next day. Callum eventually discovers a link between that murder and the church shooting, both of which are prompted by motives dating back to the siege of Leningrad, but it seems too neat that her daughter's babysitter should also prove to be a Russian survivor of WW II who knows many of those involved. McCall pulls out all the stops in his debut, investing the story with many melodramatic touches and straining to tie up the loose ends of a plot that essentially evades credibility. ( May )