Sweet Revenge

Ungainly prose and forced characterizations weaken real-life socialite Rautbord's (coauthor of Girls in High Places ) valiant attempt to write a glitzy commercial novel. Fling, the 24-year-old model behind a popular fragrance and the wife of ruthless business tycoon Kingman Beddall, is dead after a suspicious fall from the roof of the Manhattan high-rise her husband owns. A flashback chronicles Fling's modeling career, Beddall's ascent to the top of his Wall Street empire and the lives of the women Beddall has brutally used along the way. As Beddall's ego carries him further into debt with a dangerous Japanese lender, Fling becomes the innocent victim of his dirty dealings. With the descriptions of glamorous parties, yachts, mansions and shopping sprees and some lively minor characters, Rautbord is on the right track, but the novel remains inert, overwhelmed by due to stereotypic lly sketched main characters, predictable plot twists, endless name-dropping and cataloguing of brands and labels. the narrative re mains inert. 50,000 first printing; Literary Guild selection. (June)