Vendetta

It isn't easy to root for the vindictive women in Michaels's Revenge of the Sisterhood series. Sure, they're loyal and fearless, and they look good in eveningwear ("We're stunning," lawyer Nikki says. "We sizzle and we look sensual"). But in this third installment of the payback saga, the six women commit a morally repugnant act likely to leave readers cold. Myra and her longtime lover, retired MI6 agent Charles, finally discover the whereabouts of John Chai, the man who killed their daughter in a hit-and-run accident five years earlier and fled to China. So Charles and three of the "girls" fly Myra's Gulfstream to Hong Kong, where they drug "greasy, oily, unctuous" Chai, disguise him as a sick old man and sneak him back to Myra's Virginia estate. Back home, Charles makes the women banana-and-macadamia-nut pancakes, and they frolic outdoors with their new snowmobiles. Then they retire to rat-infested underground tunnels where they don hooded robes and proceed to torture Chai in "a ceremony of sorts." Other than this wildly improbable scenario, there's not a lot going on. Michaels nips the subplots before they have a chance to create any tension, and her indistinguishable characters, unfazed by their sadistic conduct, have little to do besides eat well and cheer each other on. (July)