FINAL ATONEMENT by Steve Johnson (Onyx:...

FINAL ATONEMENT by Steve Johnson (Onyx: $3.99; 283 pp., paperback original) and SORRY NOW? by Mark Richard Zubro (St. Martin’s Press: $8.95; 179 pp . ). Both of these murder mysteries involve gay police detectives investigating crimes against hate-mongering religious fundamentalists. Doug Orlando, the hero of “Final Atonement,” is a good cop--dedicated, compassionate, committed. But his fellow officers regard him as a pariah because he testified against an officer who shot an unarmed black teen-ager. Johnson makes Orlando appealing by making him human: Balding and graying, he fights the homophobia he encounters with gritty determination. The murder of a politically active Hasidic rabbi leads Orlando into one of the unfamiliar subcultures that flourish in his native Brooklyn. A sub-plot involving a Donald Trump-esque developer seems a bit over the top, but Johnson provides an effective and unexpected ending. In contrast, Zubro describes a comic-strip world where the good characters are too good and the bad ones too bad. Chicago police detective Paul Turner, a noble widower caring for his two sons, not only has all the virtues of a Boy Scout, “he could have been a model for one of the more rugged men’s colognes.” The murder of televangelist Bruce Mucklewrath’s daughter brings Turner into conflict with a stale assortment of right-wing hypocrites and gay-rights advocates. But the book’s real weakness is its flawless white knight of a hero: Perfection is boring.