Popular Brit Maxted (Running in Heels
) rewrites Cinderella
for a meaner, more cynical age in a biting saga of a filthy-rich family brought to rack and ruin by a soulless psycho intent on settling an old score. Part social commentary, part thriller, Maxted's novel charts the complicated history of rags-to-riches-times-two Jack Kent, a hotel baron who loses a first wife to an early death, watches an adopted daughter nearly marry her own father, stands by as a wastrel biological daughter squanders her life and love, and is saved by a bitchy and deliciously vindictive second wife. It's a rip-roaring tale with a creepy villain bent on wrecking the family: “I have spent all of my life thinking, plotting, imagining brilliant, twisted ways to make all of you suffer the same unimaginable hell that I did,” he seethes, “and the annoying thing is, you all have the presumption to think it coincidence!” Though the book could lose a good hundred pages and the hopscotching time line can be confusing, when Maxted finds her groove, the flow is smart, crisp and riveting. (Jan.)
