Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (George J. McLeod, 502 pages, $11.50)

To hear Vincent Bugliosi tell it, Charles Manson and his family of mass murderers would still be free, preying on unsuspecting southern California residents if it weren’t for the brilliant tenacity of the prosecutor in the Sharon Tate murder case.

Bugliosi is, of course, that prosecutor and in his 502-page ego trip he would have his readers believe that he is the cowboy in the white hat, single-handedly fighting off crime, corruption and incompetence from the bad guys in the black hats until, it becomes difficult to tell just who it was that was pretending to be God — Charles Manson or Vincent Bugliosi.

The Los Angeles police department was the most incompetent — smudging fingerprints, jealously guarding its own domain, failing to recognize vital evidence lost in its filing system and, worst of all, ignoring the many orders and leads given them by Bugliosi.

The judge hearing the case thwarted the prosecutor at every important turn, failing to understand the most obvious legal argument. The four defense lawyers were the most bungling baboons ever assembled in a courtroom, scoring just enough points to bring out the prosecutor’s true genius in rebuttal, spending the rest of their time playing right into Bugliosi’s hand.

The defendants were simply unsuspecting pawns who will undoubtedly help Bugliosi reap thousands of dollars in book royalties on his way to political stardom. Surely a legal mind as brilliant as his can’t be ignored by the masses forever.

The Sharon Tate murders and the subsequent discovery of the Charles Manson cult was America’s most widely-publicized investigation and trial until Watergate. Bugliosi’s role was major enough to lay the basis for what could be an exciting insider’s view of Hollywood, crime and crimefighting and, most of all, the lifestyle of America’s rebellious youth in the 1960s.

But Bugliosi can’t write and Curt Gentry, who is supposedly the co-author because he can, obviously abandoned his trade to give the lawyer free reign to wander through a legalistic maze as boring as a trial transcript.

Unlike Truman Capote, who manages to get his readers emotionally involved in his crime novels such as In Cold Blood, Bugliosi has opted to stick to the facts no matter how complicated and confusing the many names, footnotes and pages of question-and-answer dialogue may seem.

As if to make sure the reader doesn’t forget how privileged he is to share in this rare insider’s view of this notorious crime, the author continuously throws out tidbit of previously unpublished information — none of which is very important and much of which is terribly boring.

Bugliosi’s biggest omission is his failure to go beyond the trial and his interview tapes to reveal the personal experiences that motivated the members of Manson’s family to follow him into the desert and submit themselves to his many whims, including sex and murder. The backgrounds of the girls involved is often summarized in a paragraph or a page and Manson’s background information is restricted to official prison and court files.

The jury that eventually convicted Manson and three of his girls was sequestered for about seven months, longer than many sentences given felons.

The reader that wants to find out what really happened must sequester himself for what seems like days to wade through the 502 pages of information, more than all but a few readers could possibly want to know about any crime.

By JOHN HARDER