Features:
Description:
Sally Harrington, a suburban Connecticut reporter, is in Hollywood with her new boyfriend, Spencer Hawes, a book editor who's launching a million-dollar book that's already been bought by a major movie studio. In Laura Van Wormer's romantic thriller, the initial suspense centers on the boyfriend's disappearance, which may be linked to that of Lilliana Martin, a Hollywood actress whose flirtation with Spencer at the launch party did not go unobserved by Sally or the other party guests. Back on the East Coast, Sally's job seems to be slipping away, too, until the powerful anchorwoman of a TV station owned by the newspaper that employs our heroine places her right in the center of the story that develops when Sally's identified as the last person to see Lilliana's ex-boyfriend, Cliff Yarlen, before he turns up dead. There's plenty of plot twisting and turning to keep the somewhat limited dramatic tension going, but it's Sally, as confused about her love life as she is about her professional responsibilities, who's the real star of this comfortably engrossing, though predictable, novel. Van Wormer's holiday dish won't seem reheated to fans who've made bestsellers of many of her earlier books (Exposé, Riverside Drive, etc.), though it may taste like leftovers to readers who sample this one first. --Jane Adams
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