NONFICTION - May 12, 1991

WHEN YOU AND YOUR MOTHER CAN’T BE FRIENDS by Victoria Secunda (Delta: $10). Ghosts of your mother’s past can rise to haunt you without the three graces of understanding, empathy and forgiveness.

WRITTEN IN BLOOD: Detective and Detection (Warner: $4.95). Crime historian applies exact pressure to coerce the everpresent silent witnesses: fingerprints, ballistics and the microscope.

THE BRAIN by Richard M. Restak MD (Bantam: $17.50). The ability to retain as much information as a library is only one marvel of the three-pound wonder we carry in our heads.

WHEN SHE WAS BAD: The Story of Bess, Hortense, Sukhreet & Nancy by Shana Alexander (Dell: $5.95). The 1945 Miss America’s (Bess Myerson) mid-life foibles were dubbed by the press “the Bess Mess.”

FLASHBACKS by Morley Safer (St. Martin’s: $5.95). Correspondent returns to an almost unchanged, desolate Vietnam 25 years after the war.

FICTION

MESSAGE FROM NAM by Danielle Steel (Dell: $5.99). War correspondent Paxton Andrews juggles three men and a wardrobe in the jungles of Vietnam.

THREE BLIND MICE by Ed McBain (Mysterious: $4.95). The heinous murders of three Vietnamese are grist for this ninth Mathew Hope story.

THE TONGUES OF ANGELS by Reynolds Price (Ballantine: $4.95). Summer camp provides the common ground for a camper and his counselor’s childhood memories.

THE HORSE LATITUDES by Robert Ferrigno (Avon: $5.95). Ex-drug dealer is jolted out of his Newport Beach retirement by the criminal misdeeds of his ex-wife.

ROOTIE KAZOOTIE by Lawrence Naumoff (Ivy: $4.95). Richard and Caroline’s uncoupling is a direct result of their disillusionment with farm life--and sultry neighbor, Cynthia.