Homme Fatale

In a debut novel with a made-for-Hollywood feel, British screenwriter Mayersberg unreels a story of sexual obsession that at first intrigues but ultimately slackens. Set in Los Angeles, the novel depicts a man and a woman who, caught in the force of their mutual attraction, circle each other in a deadly orbit. Film agent Mason Elliott is bored with his live-in lover Barbara and emotionally castrated by his foul-mouthed, abusive, oversexed mother. On vacation in New Mexico, he glimpses--and can't forget the sight of--a pale woman dressed in black pulling a dead girl's body down a hall. Back in L.A., Mason hires Ursula Baxter as his new secretary, believing she is the woman in black, now insinuating herself into his life and his bed. Ursula, an ex-porn star who reads Charlotte Bronte and keeps a diary, is revealed as a madwoman who murders without remorse; Mason becomes her somewhat regretful accomplice. Neither of these two obsessed protagonists elicits the reader's sympathies. Despite occasional jolts of surprise in the action and the author's unremitting focus on graphic sex, this clone of Fatal Attraction is only moderately suspenseful. 50,000 first printing. (July)