The Trophy Wife

The pseudonymous Diamond alternates laughs with chills in this tale of marriage, kidnapping and high finance in the Susan Isaacs/Olivia Goldsmith school of social satire. With his wife, Emily, safely tucked away in a New Jersey mansion, InterBank senior vice-president and CEO hopeful Walter Childs is mentoring a young, beautiful and ambitious colleague, Angela Hilliard--whom he plans to make his trophy wife as soon as he summons the nerve to tell Emily he's leaving her. But before he can, Emily is kidnapped, the ransom demand a cool $100 million. Bank security director Andrew Hogan and private detective Helen Restivo get on the case, deducing right away that someone familiar with InterBank had to have planned the abduction. Suspects include Walter, Angela, Emily's lover Bill Leary and even Emily herself. A second ransom threat confuses the situation further, and, in some very funny scenes, Emily's thuggish captors outsmart Helen's arrogant but bumbling operatives. Switching back and forth between Emily's ordeal and the secret attempts to free her, Diamond throws out a few clues, but they're well camouflaged by her hectic pacing and sharply drawn characters. A strong climax and satisfying epilogue conclude a smart, suspense-packed novel that raises some pertinent questions about the roles of honesty, sacrifice, ambition and self-awareness in the modern corporate world. (Apr.)