TITLES

Sleazy, roman-à-clef doings in a teensy European tax-haven circa 1957--as sexy, downright decadent, Prince-Rainier-esque Prince Philippe inherits his father's gambling principality, here called St. Saladin. Which will fool nobody. But along with the throne comes Dieter Stosch's black-hand organization, seemingly bent on settling gambling debts by wiping out half the novel's characters--not all that bad an idea, since they're the usual group of show-folk and jet-setters who live by groin and greed alone. Stosch's primary objective, however, is the engineering of a suitable wife for Philippe. Enter blond Georgina Game, secretly sensual, ice-princess movie star, who is maneuvered into the arms of jaded Philippe as St. Saladin's socialites are murdered one by one. The locales plop plushly from Belgravia to pied-à-terres on the lie St. Louis to the royal digs in St. Saladin--but the true habitat here is, of course, hand-me-down Harold-Robbins land, but without even Robbins' primitive verve. Pallid and tasteless.