Now This

What makes a great TV show doesn't necessarily make a good life--as May Morrison, the hyper producer of the Paula Live talk show, discovers in Star's erratic second novel (after Up Next). Shortly after May manages to convince her friend and neighbor, Stacey Blum, to come on the air to discuss a spa Stacey has recently visited, Stacey is found drowned in her own swimming pool; and that's odd, because she was an expert swimmer. It's odder still that Stacey had desperately tried to contact May and several others before her death. And it's strangest of all that her close friend, also a spa regular, has also recently died. Star reserves her snappiest writing for scenes dealing with the TV show; her most vivid character is May's colleague Margery, who brightens each of the few scenes she's in. By contrast, suburbia never looked more bland, despite a wealth of details about babysitters and neighbors. Readers will wish that May would shake loose from her constant anxiety and relax, too; but at least the pace is brisk and the puzzle engaging, even if its solution is far-fetched. (June)