Dangerous Love

Lanigan, best known for her novelizations of Romancing the Stone and Jewel of the Nile, explores less exotic territory in this tale of three women's obsessive love for one manipulative, self-absorbed man. All the females in Richard Bartlow's life--his wife, naive heiress Mary Grace Whittaker; the other woman, ad agency executive Alicia Carrel; and his mistress, New Age massage therapist Michelle Windsong--serve calculated purposes in his climb to success. But what any one of these women (let alone all three) sees in Richard is beyond comprehension. Wrapped in his own dementia, Richard plots a final act of deceit to save himself from possible imprisonment and to give himself a new life. Unfortunately, his scam turns out to be as disappointing to him as the ending of this book is to the reader. (Aug.)