Fans of John Harvey's Charlie Resnick police procedurals will be both surprised and pleased to learn there's a new one.

Surprised, because Harvey ended the series, which gave him critical acclaim and a loyal following, after 10 novels. When the writer moved from Nottingham, the crime-infested site of the series, to London, he was announcing he wanted his work to move on as well.

		"COLD IN HAND" By John Harvey Harcourt ($26)

A few novels later, Harvey may have changed his mind, but "Cold in Hand" shows he hasn't lost his touch. It has all the surprises, the urban realism and the complexity of problems and character typical of his previous novels.

Modern Nottingham has no Robin Hood and the poor aren't as innocent as they used to be. Resnick is a chubby, jazz-loving bachelor with low self-esteem, famous for his creative ways with a sandwich. Though near retirement, he still heads up the homicide squad.

At the end of the last novel, Resnick prevented the murder of a member of his squad, Lynn Kellogg, in an incident which propelled these two wounded souls into a relationship that in the new novel, finds them living together quite happily.

But not much else has changed in the city. Organized crime thrives. Immigrant subcultures dominate run-down neighborhoods and rival gangs fight and die for the same absurd and self-destructive reasons, slum turf and pride.

Early on, Kellogg is shot and wounded by a bystander while trying to stop a fight, but a young girl is killed.

Resnick almost immediately finds trouble dealing with the dead girl's family, the Brents. The father, a Jamaican immigrant, goads Resnick with charges of police racism and claims Kellogg used his daughter as a shield and so caused her death.

Back on the beat, Kellogg is having her own problems investigating the murder of a prostitute, a recent immigrant from Eastern Europe. She is approached by a mysterious officer in the Serious and Organized Crime Agency who wants to both date her and interview her witness. She resists on both counts and later learns the agent has close ties with the dead woman's pimp.

As uncertainties about both murders increase, distrust and hostilities among the communities and various police agencies escalate. Then the roof falls in on Resnick when Kellogg is shot dead as she enters their home.

Harvey keeps you guessing about the murders, but along the way we get pictures of justice and injustice crudely played out, as it often is, among competing interests and the tragedies of individuals caught in these larger struggles.

Resnick's personal losses come to stand for a society that cannot seem to right itself. But the introduction of new and energetic investigators, mostly from recent immigrant families, suggest that the game (and, I'm guessing, this series) may not be over.

"Cold in Hand," the blues classic by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith which Resnick loves, turns loss to beauty. And so Charlie keeps on keeping on. Let's hope Harvey does, too.