Synopsis
A group of five women find their long friendship tested by romantic rivalries, and finally, a murder
Reviews
In this adroitly plotted first novel, set in contemporary London, British literary agent Smith works a keenly observed story of five women into a murder thriller. Beth, a divorced caterer, has been having an affair with Oliver, a married banker. Vivienne, a former "Debutante of the Year," happens to be married to Oliver and doesn't know of the affair. Georgy, an American photographer on assignment in London, is infatuated with Beth's ex-husband. Without any obvious links (at first) to the first three are Sally, the sexy, freewheeling good-time girl from Australia, and Catherine, a veterinarian's receptionist whose famous mother cruelly squashed her one chance at love. Smith nimbly charts the ways in which the disparate lives of these women intersect until they all meet, by chance, in a gynecological ward, where they become friends. She generates suspense with a violent prologue in which an unnamed woman is attacked in her kitchen and maintains the tension with short, italicized chapters detailing further murders (with the players remaining anonymous). By the time the main plot acquires the sinister tone of the prologue and interchapters, every character has come so vividly to life that the reader is hooked, ready to be reeled in as Smith subtly orchestrates the series of events that brings the canny and experienced killer to the fore in a protracted and graphic conclusion. Major ad/promo.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A London literary agent debuts with a halfhearted celebration of female bonding, tarted up with a murder mystery but mostly concerned with sex, shopping, and food. Beth is a stout but vivacious London caterer, pals with her gay ex-husband Gus, lover with globe-trotting Oliver. Oliver is unhappily married to spoiled but glamorous Vivienne. Vivienne takes her designer cats to Duncan, a charismatic veterinarian, where meek Catherine is the receptionist. Uninhibited Sally is an Aussie bumming around London, blithe, attractive, and penniless. And Georgy is a neurotic American photographer, aggressively besotted with Gus. The five women meet while patients in a gynecological ward, their various maladies being treated by Addison, the one-and- only love of Catherine's youth. The girls stay in touch following their release from the hospital. Only the unlucky Catherine isn't cured, and Addison has to deal with the fact that many years ago, while aborting their baby, he'd caused the wounds that are now killing her. At her funeral, Duncan falls hard for Beth. But all isn't rosy: Drugs apparently sped Catherine's demise. Meanwhile, Vivienne offers to back Georgy's debut as a society-pet photographer, but the gifted lenswoman gets stabbed in the back. This attempted murder finally gets the attention of Georgy's neglectful father, a famous criminal psychologist. The good doctor investigates all of the suspects, but he doesn't move fast enough. It turns out that the accounts of vicious murders sprinkled, without explanation, between chapters are subtle clues that there's a psychopath in the cozy circle--and that none of the friends is safe. Dazed by endless rounds of coincidence, dime-store psychologizing (``Vivienne shopped for one basic reason: a need for love''), and minutely described boozy meals, readers may well be beyond caring who's wielding the knife. -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
When five very different women meet as patients in a London hospital, they begin to develop friendships among themselves. These tentative bonds are threatened, however, as they discover that their lives are already intertwined through the men they know. Suddenly one of the women dies and another is viciously attacked, and it becomes clear to the reader that they are being stalked by a killer. Although the book starts a bit slowly as the women are introduced, the suspense begins to build as the crimes are committed. First-time author Smith plants several clues, so it is not too difficult to figure out the identity of the psychopathic murderer. The otherwise astute women seem surprisingly unaware of the danger and must be saved by the men who piece together the mystery and ride to the rescue. In spite of this disappointing turn, Smith's debut remains promising.?Barbara E. Kemp, University at Albany Libs., N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Five women will eventually come to form strong, oddly curious bonds of friendship, but first they find themselves sharing a ward as patients in one of central London's National Health hospitals. These lives are joined together by a complex web of connections that Smith's deliciously suspenseful first novel adeptly allows to unfold at a nearly perfect pace. The clever narrative features a decidedly nuanced feminist theme, with a bevy of skillfully rendered female characters as different as they can be from one another, yet drawn together by the Fates--with some help from a psychopathic serial killer. The mesmerizing tale resolves around the charming central figure of Beth and other, less likable individuals (who eventually come into their own), building unfalteringly to its startling conclusion. Alice Joyce
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