THE PLUNGE

An erotic thriller slinks from Manhattan to Lake Como.

Playwright Liv, 31, moves to New York after barely surviving a car crash on a coastal road in Northern California that sent her plunging into the Pacific Ocean and killed the man she’d planned to marry two weeks later. Unable to write, and living in the tiny maid’s room of former college mentor Sam, Liv becomes obsessed with a mysterious pair of people she sees at a party. The enigmatic Damon, a famous jewelry designer in his 40s, has more than a little in common with Liv’s abusive, unstable, dead fiancé. Isabel, a “beguiling older woman” in her 60s, is more attracted to Damon than he is to her. A once-famous writer, she’s recently spent her time as a fixer for her recently deceased husband, a high-end private investigator. Also in their orbit, to Liv’s horror, is nefarious British journalist Rex, who knows far more than Liv would like about the fatal accident. When the four converge for a summer vacation at Isabel’s villa in Italy, they collide in ways both predictable and not. Playing with the conventions of the films noir that Sam is always watching and using dialogue supercharged with sexual innuendo, the novel doesn’t stint on lurid scenes of psychological and physical domination, and Raicek polishes her prose to a fine gloss. The streets of New York, where Liv and Damon walk at all hours, serve as a sparkling backdrop for their turbulent romance. While one might wish Liv were a tad more self-aware, the novel wouldn’t be such a wildly sensational experience if she were. Full of artifice, it pays tribute to “the razor’s edge between desire and doom.”

A tantalizing romantic triangle with more than a hint of menace.