DANGEROUS GAMES

Top-level newspaper, magazine, and political types betray each other and the public trust—and spend money with style and abandon on both sides of the Atlantic. Crosland (Ruling Passions, 1990), who had a political column in London and was married to an MP, knows all about politics and print. Goodness knows where she got the naughty bits. Georgie Chase has an Anna Wintour haircut, a Tina Brown job, and a Bob Woodward husband. Georgie and her husband, Hugo, have a flat in Manhattan, a Georgetown house, a lodge on the Eastern Shore, two pretty children, and problems. Georgie's New York job and her rapid rise to the tip of the publishing heap have begun to distance her from Washington-based Hugo's affections, leaving him vulnerable to the wiles of Lisa Tabor, an up-and-coming lobbyist who will do anything to advance the causes of her clients or her career. Lisa, following the directives of her crude but effective boss, Jock, lobbies these days for Star Oil, assisting that petro- giant to grab a piece of British oil fields. The transatlantic lobbying strategy involves the seduction of Hugo and, if possible, of Ian Lonsdale, a cabinet minister married to Georgie's best British chum Patsy. Meanwhile, adultery isn't the only snake in the perfectly manicured grass. Irish terrorism lurks both in London and in a dark corner of Jock's glossy Washington office suite. Bombs boom, and vows break. The sex and politics are deeply cynical and rather well done, so it is jarring when Romantic Resolution rears its perfectly coiffed head. As slick as an expensive monthly.