One of Us Is Dead

February 1, 2022
A salon owner who serves the upper-crust women of Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood recalls the events that led up to the death of one of them. Once Congressman Bryce Madison has divorced Shannon Madison, who still insists on using his last name, and marries trophy wife Crystal, the first order of business for Olivia Petrov, the monstrous vice chairwoman of the Buckhead Women's Foundation, is to get Shannon voted out as the organization's chairwoman--a decision she announces to Shannon in the middle of a gala Shannon organized. Olivia's second order of business is to get Shannon nixed as a client by Jenny at the Glow Beauty Bar and unfriended by upscale realtor Karen Richardson, whose husband, plastic surgeon Mark Richardson, Olivia has called on repeatedly for services both professional and unprofessional. But Shannon's not about to go gently into that good night; Karen is busy falling for Keisha, Jenny's friend and employee; and Crystal, who's hiding secrets of her own, may not be the ideal new member of the frenemies group Olivia has gathered around her. As she's questioned by Detective Frank Sanford, Jenny is joined by four other narrators--Olivia, Karen, Shannon, and Crystal--who take turns dishing on each other and heartlessly detailing all the offensive and defensive moves each of them made. As Rose sends her juiced-up take on Clare Boothe Luce's classic play The Women hurtling toward a conclusion whose only clearly preordained feature is that one of them will end up killing one of the others, suspense focuses mainly on why only one of these eminently deserving ladies ends up dead. Sublimely bitchy. What else is there to know?

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February 14, 2022
This decently plotted but pedestrian page-turner from Rose (The Perfect Marriage) centers on a posse of viperous trophy wives vying for social status in the posh Atlanta enclave of Buckhead. Employing the exclusive Glow salon as their unofficial clubhouse, these ladies who do not lunch (preferring to use the calories on booze instead) multitask beauty treatments and backstabbing. Among them is ruthless Olivia Petrov, who successfully strips frenemy Shannon Madison—recently dumped by her politician husband for a much younger female bartender and therefore expendable—of her nonprofit committee chair post. From here tensions between the two Mrs. Madisons start to simmer, roiling the rest of the group; Glow gets broken into, and at least one of them winds up murdered. Despite cartoonish characters and often clunky prose, the novel does have its amusing moments, but these end up being overshadowed by the exploitative use of two serious issues—domestic violence and human trafficking—as little more than plot points to help set up the surprising denouement. This one’s vibe might best be encapsulated in “The Real Karens of Buckhead.” Agent: Sandy Lu, Book Wyrm Literary.