cover image A Death in Santa Barbara

A Death in Santa Barbara

Matthew Heller. Avon Books, $4.99 (339pp) ISBN 978-0-380-76641-3

Former Reuters correspondent Heller announces the crime and its perpetrators in his prologue, so his challenge is to make the protagonists' sordid world come alive. He succeeds only partially, as he sketches the life of Phillip Bogdanoff, who in 1989 was shot as he lay sunbathing naked with his wife on a Santa Barbara beach. Bogdanoff was raised in an insular rural California community of the Russian Molokan sect and was a heavy drinker and twice divorced when he married the mercenary Diana Wymore. Diana's daughter Stephanie rebelled against her disruptive family life (Diana was also on her third marriage) by turning to drugs and sex. She clashed with Bogdanoff, embracing a ne'er-do-well crowd in Bakersfield. At Diana's request, friends from Stephanie's drug-dealing circle, Brian Stafford and Rickey Lee Rodgers, shot Bogdanoff. Diana's suspicious behavior and an informant broke the case. Brian, Rickey and Stephanie all pleaded no contest to varying charges, and Diana was convicted of first-degree murder. Heller posits theories about Diana--cold schemer vs. battered woman--but fails to explore them deeply. (July)