Violent Love

Despite two bloody climaxes (in a downtown Manhattan loft and in front of a West Side leather bar) there isn't much of a payoff here, as Oster's New York gliterati and low-life grifters offer little besides talk and murder. Six months after her disappearance, ex-model and real-estate biggie Karen Justice is found in the East River minus head, hands and feet. Her widower Tony, famous writer to whom the killer of Karen's first husband had confessed, marries a beautiful photographer. A pair of unnamed members of ``the Freres ,'' a clandestine, orgiastic gay club, make secret plans. As NYPD detective Joe Cullen and his reporter girlfriend Ann follow separate sleuthing paths, additional murders--Ann is a suspect in one--lead back to the plot's mainspring: the Freres' s determination to keep their naughty secret (the revelation of which would probably elicit yawns in fast-track Gotham). Neither scenes of graphic gay S/M sex nor a tiresome cast of talky characters bring life into this tale. Oster wrote Sweet Justice and Club Dead. 50,000 first printing; $50,000 ad/promo. (May)