The Ladies' Lunch

Washington, D.C., would seem a better place to forge political alliances than to bond in friendship. Yet O'Brien ( The Candidate's Wife ) challenges that assumption with this breezy drama about four elite women who meet monthly for a ``ladies' lunch'' and who stalwartly stick together after a fifth companion--White House Press Secretary Faith Paige--drowns in the Potomac. The authorities call it suicide, but Faith had been having an affair with the President, and behind-the-scenes conniving points to any number of would-be murderers. At first glance, the plot seems a sexy takeoff on the real-life mystery surrounding the death of White House General Counsel Vincent Foster, but the resemblance goes no further. Instead, this novel concentrates on humanizing the bigwigs who seem so emotionless on the nightly news. Among the women portrayed are a Supreme Court nominee who tangles with the President's venal chief of staff; a former Washington Post reporter who's encouraged by a book publisher to betray her pals by writing an expose; a congresswoman; and a high-society caterer unhappily married to a craven businessman. O'Brien portrays these women as forces to be reckoned with, though her tale raises the question of why fictional ``ladies'' so often must concentrate so gleefully on revenge against powerful men. The ultimate theme here is loyalty, however, and the author lends every complication the juiciness of an inside scoop. (Aug.)