During the past week, I read a couple of detective novels by two of the top writers of the genre, Harold Adams and Ed McBain. They represent a vastly different sensibility, to say nothing of terrain and time.

It's quite a contrast of styles. McBain's celebrated and prolific 87th Precinct series is urban, contemporary, fast moving and often as complicated as the metropolis it reflects.

Harold Adams, whom I discovered more recently, has a laconic homicide investigator, Carl Wilcox, as the protagonist, in rural Wisconsin near the Minnesota border and set in the late 1930's, or post-Depression.

And, of the recent entries, it is Adams' LEAD, SO I CAN FOLLOW (published by Walker) that I much preferred. I don't mean to imply that this a contest between the two authors. McBain's THE LAST DANCE (published by Simon and Schuster) must be, at least, the 20th in the 87th Precinct series I've read, and the body of work reflects some gripping cosmopolitan sagas.

But detective novels are becoming quite plentiful and the city turf has been neatly taken over by authors such as Lawrence Block and Gerald Boyle. Also, the absence of a clear protagonist works against the latest 87th Precinct novel.

Harold Adams has the north central plains to himself.. Sometimes Detective Carl Wilcox and his new bride travel at Model T Ford pace. They discover one murder and stick to it. Adams' skill makes it seem as if Wilcox and his bride are telling the readers what happened - the hows, the whys, the intrigues. It's as if they are whispering to you from the side of their mouths, between spittles.

For those of you who are not acquainted with Ed McBain (which is a nom de plume for Evan Hunter), any bookstore worth its paperback revenue would be well stacked with the 87th Precinct books, and you could not go wrong if you picked one at random.

Harold Adams' portfolio is also impressive, if more recent. For lovers of the detective novel, this rural, not too verbal ex-con, private eye, Carl Wilcox might be a jewel.

McBain's latest is THE LAST DANCE.

Adams' is called LEAD, SO I CAN FOLLOW.