AN ACCIDENTAL AFFAIR

What’s a financially successful screenwriter to do when his movie-star wife stars in an extremely explicit sex video? Can he possibly believe her claim that it was all an accident?

Dickey’s latest novel (Tempted by Trouble, 2010, etc.) drops the reader into a very hip world starring characters ready-made for the screen. Their finances are vast, their bodies perfect, their troubles worthy of coverage on TMZ. Gorgeous Regina Baptiste, James Thicke’s wife, has struggled to be taken seriously as an actor. Yet she has surprisingly starred in an explicit video with Johnny Bergs, aka Johnny Handsome, an actor she previously claimed to despise. James first gauges the world’s reaction via social-networking sites. He then attacks Bergs and flees to a seedier part of town while his driver, called Driver, packs up and delivers all of his furniture and electronic gadgets. Hiding out amid a curious assortment of characters, James immediately, repeatedly and with carefully described technical prowess, exacts sexual revenge upon his wife with virtual strangers. His new neighbors include Mr. Chetwyn Holder, who jealously loves his young girlfriend. Mrs. Patrice Evans, who uses exercise not only to keep her body in shape but also to fill the emotional void that is her marriage. Sweet Isabel, a lovely, slightly older woman, offers James conversation and more. Yet Regina still loves James, Bergs’ family wants revenge and a mysterious number keeps showing up on James’ caller ID. And then there’s the mysterious and threatening return of Regina’s ex-husband. Dickey has set up an ardent thriller in which James must discover why his wife was in the sex video. Did someone coerce or trick her? How? Could the affair actually have been accidental? The pace is fast, to be sure, yet James’ own promiscuity makes his jealousy difficult to sympathize with.  A mix of erotica and noir, this novel lacks emotional depth.