THE TALK SHOW DEFENSE

Some people are born to knuckle under. Paralegal Peggy O'Neill, who took her husband Mickey's abuse for years before she made herself such a nuisance that he divorced her, allows her boss to bully her into appearing on The Kevin Grant Show and chat about Mickey. And just in case the facts aren't enough (and they won't be: Peggy is such a mope that she makes almost no impression on the glazed host), production assistant Gary Lock has a suggestion: Peggy can tell the audience that she got even with Mickey by taking a lover. It isn't true, but Mickey sees the show, runs out in a frenzy of rage and humiliation to Peggy's office, and drags her out into his car. Now Lt. Maggie Van Zandt, head of Manhattan's North Homicide Command, has a Central Park corpse mutilated beyond identification and a handbag of Peggy's found in a trash bin nearby. Should she be looking for Mickey? No, because—as Gross (Full Blown Rage, 1995, etc.) has already shown—Mickey's dead, killed by Peggy after he forced her to help him kill that drifter in the park. Now Peggy can think of only one thing: destroying everyone connected to the TV show that effectively ended her life. And this woman who's never shown a spark of gumption is turning into one of the slyest avengers imaginable . . . A lively tale that packs more than its share of twists before settling into the inevitable mano a mano between Maggie and her prey.