Hot Type

Clean living takes a holiday in the sensational Vulgar Favors (Delacorte), in which V.F. special correspondent MAUREEN ORTH exposes the sexually depraved and violent demimonde of celebrity-starved serial killer Andrew Cunanan. Also this month: European-lit phenom ZOE JENNY'S novel, The Pollen Room (Simon & Schuster), translated from the German by Elizabeth Gaffney, features an ecstasy-popping Swiss miss in pursuit of the mother who deserted her. HELMUT NEWTON and ALICE SPRINGS share 50 years' worth of intimate snaps in Us and Them (Scalo). Poet SUSAN KINSOLVING dazzles with Dailies & Rushes (Grove). The forces of fear and desire that propel men to abandon the mothers of their children (and then write about it) form the dark heart of HANIF KUREISHI'S provocative novel Intimacy (Scribner). The ceramics of the great babe-magnet Pablo Picasso are exquisitely reproduced in Picasso (Abrams), edited by MARILYN McCULLY. In Booknotes: Life Stories (Times Books), C-SPAN commentator BRIAN LAMB offers a fount of information on famous folk that was gathered from the literary leeches who have immortalized them. JOHN PODHORETZ edits A Passion for Truth (HarperCollins), the selected writings of the late ERIC BREINDEL, conservative editorialist of the New York Post. Finally, a millennium novel for fans of Beltway skulduggery: humorist CHRISTOPHER BUCKLEY beams up Little Green Men (Random House), in which a TV pundit is abducted while playing golf at his hoity-toity country club. That might explain George Will's hair ...

ELISSA SCHAPPELL