TELLING LIES TO ALICE

The sleazy glitter of London in the late 1960s and early 1970s provides a backdrop for murder in this third mystery thriller by Wilson (A Little Death ; Dying Voices ). Nightclub bunny Alice Conway met television comedian Lenny Maxted in a scene out of a James Bond movie: she was speeding along in a white Mercedes Cabriolet and he whipped past in his blue Aston Martin coupe, racing her to a stop. When Lenny visited the nightclub accompanied by the other half of his comic duo, Jack Flowers, the chitchat was full of sexual innuendo. Soon Alice and Lenny fell in love, leaving Jack to his suburban wife, Val. Then, for reasons Alice never fully comprehended, Jack and Lenny split and Lenny committed suicide. The novel opens six years later. Alice, alone in her country hideaway, receives newspaper clippings of a woman's body recently discovered at the bottom of a lake. Alice believes the dead woman is Kitty, a fellow bunny who disappeared shortly before Lenny's death. More questions arise and danger threatens when Jack shows up at Alice's door, triggering memories, telling lies and asking Alice to put on her bunny costume one more time. Familiar elements render this suspense novel less than suspenseful: the beautiful young woman alone in a remote country house, the old friend turned enemy, the secret porno tape, the trail of blood and confessions leading to the denouement. But Wilson has a strong sense of the times, and the portrait of the comedians, individually and as a team, is vivid and convincing. (Mar. 9)