LIMELIGHT

Actress Enora Andressen finds herself in the spotlight for all the worst reasons when a friend who’s so new some might not count her as a friend vanishes from a “post-aspirational” seaside town in East Devon.

Following the death of her recent lover, screenwriter Pavel Sieger, Enora’s turned her back on the public to visit her friend Evelyn Warlock, a gifted editor, in quietly upscale Budleigh Salterton. It’s there that she meets Evelyn’s neighbor: short-tempered Andy McFaul, who lost a leg disarming land mines in Angola, and his partner, charming Christianne Beaucarne. No sooner has Enora bonded with Christianne than her new friend disappears, leaving behind a note that strongly indicates that she plans to do away with herself—and no wonder, since she’s been diagnosed with motor neurone disease, which would have killed her shortly and painfully anyway. Enora shares her belief that Christianne has committed suicide every chance she gets, and she gets plenty of chances, because DI Frank Bullivant, determined to close this case his way before he retires, arrests Andy, and then, after releasing him, Enora herself. If only the actress can survive his suspicions, her future seems assured, since her feckless son, Malo, throws in his lot with Sylvester Penny, the son of neighboring ex-diplomat Sir William Penny, to promote the Twilight Fund, which proposes to sell spaces in deluxe underground silos (think high-rises in reverse) to super-rich clients who want to be able to shelter against war, disease, and famine until natural death claims them.

Brisk, confident, and clearly aimed at readers who already share its heroine’s assumptions about life and lifestyles.