Good Rich People

Lyla Herschel, the principal narrator of this fiendish psychological thriller from Brazier (If I Disappear), suffers from boredom, as does her super wealthy husband, Graham, with whom she lives in a grand house perched on a cliff in the Hollywood Hills. To alleviate their mutual emotional ennui, the couple initiate a dangerous game with the well-to-do tenants they solicit for the guesthouse on their property. Meanwhile, Demi Golding, who’s homeless, stumbles into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take on the identity of a well-paid director of a tech company. Lyla is happy to accept Demi when she applies to be their new tenant, and she soon becomes unwittingly engaged in Lyla and Graham’s nefarious schemes. Brazier plays delicious homage to Richard Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game” and Nathaniel West’s The Day of the Locust as the action builds to a climactic out-of-control 30th birthday party that involves guests in a battle of “simunition” (“Real guns but fake ammunition”). Along the way, the two women—one trapped in a dead-end marriage, the other in an audacious attempt to improve her social status—bond. Readers with a taste for the idiosyncratic and the macabre will find much to relish. Agent: Sarah Bedingfield, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary. (Jan.)