FICTION

MURDER IN THE CIA by Margaret Truman (Fawcett/Crest: $4. 95). Eighth in Truman’s suspenseful series. Colette Ca- hill, CIA, travels to London to investigate the murder of a friend and sometimes covert operative.

TENDING TO VIRGINIA by Jill McCorkle (Fawcett/Crest: $4.95). Confined to bed during her eighth month of pregnancy, Virginia Suzanne Ballard is attended to by her well-intentioned matriarchal Southern tribe.

SOME SOUL TO KEEP by J. California Cooper (St. Martin’s Press: $8.95). Cooper imbues the folksy characters in her collection of stories with astonishing wisdom and droll wit.

BEFORE THE DARKNESS FALLS by Eugenia Price (Berkley: $4.95). This sequel to “Savannah” and “To See Your Face Again” dramatizes a disintegrating marriage, forbidden love and unfettered political actions.

KATAKI: A Novel of Revenge by Hank Searls (Berkley: $4.50). American pilots bomb a Japanese island during World War II and kill a young boy’s mother. Forty years later one of the pilots becomes vice president of the United States and a boy’s bitterness turns to an assassin’s revenge. (Based partly on an incident in the military career of Vice President George Bush.)

NONFICTION

TIMEBENDS: A Life by Arthur Miller (Perennial Library: $10.95). Miller muses over personal and professional convictions that brought him to the pinnacle of his career as a playwright “Death Of A Salesman” and “ The Crucible” and, of course, his marriage to Marilyn Monroe.

THIS FAR AND NO MORE by Andrew H. Malcolm (Signet: $4.50). A woman’s verve for life is disrupted by Lou Gehrig’s disease; and she is just as emphatic in choosing how she will die.

MOTHERS IN THE FATHERLAND: Women, the Family, and Nazi Politics by Claudia Koonz (St. Martin’s: $14.95). Reappraisal of women’s roles in the Third Reich.

MYSTERIOUS CALIFORNIA: Strange Places and Eerie Phenomena in the Golden State by Mike Marinacci (Panpipes Press: $7.95). Oddments off the well-worn tourist path.

PAST IMPERFECT: An Autobiography by Joan Collins (Berkley: $3.95). Not too much gets past Collins, according to this bare-all book of the glamorous life.

SELF HELP / REFERENCE

BAY AND OCEAN COOKBOOK: Ark Restaurant Cuisine by Jimella Lucas and Nanci Main (Penguin: $9.95). Features seafood entrees from the Northwest plus special soups, sauces, appetizers and desserts.

COPING WITH DIFFICULT PEOPLE by Robert M. Bramson Ph.D (Dell: $3.95). Hostile-Aggressive, Complainers, Silent and Unresponsive, Super-Agreeables, Negativists, Know-It-Alls and Indecisives are seven of the personality types Bramson helps us manage.