FACES TO WATCH JUDITH VAN GIESON

''I was reading a lot of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett,'' says Judith Van Gieson, ''and I thought, someone should be writing these kinds of books with women in them.'' So she set out to do it. After three rather quiet mysteries featuring a tough-talking, female Albuquerque lawyer, name of Neil Hamel, Van Gieson finally hits her stride with HarperCollins' February publication of The Wolf Path. Set amid the tumbleweed and cacti of the Southwest, like her others, The Wolf Path is Van Gieson's best book yet-crisp, taut, and utterly compelling. Van Gieson, 50, turned to writing after her 1978 divorce. She sold her Vermont real estate business, packed her bags, and moved to San Miguel de Allende, an artists' and writers' colony in Mexico. Inspired by the stark beauty of that country-and of Santa Fe, where she lived next-Van Gieson began writing her fiction. She cites Tony Hillerman as an inspiration, and is wary about natural comparisons to mystery writers Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton. ''The things I write about are different,'' says Van Gieson, who divides her time between Albuquerque and Warren, Vt. ''I work an environmental issue into each book''-in this one, the plight of the Mexican gray wolf. And although Neil Hamel may be related to such fictional female sleuths as V.I. Warshawski and Kinsey Millhone, Van Gieson says it's a distant kinship: ''For starters, she's the only one with a steady man in her life.''