The Playground of the Gods

On a remote, idyllic South Pacific island, the war between the sexes takes on new heat in Cash-Spellman's (An Excess of Love) latest novel of romantic suspense. Billionaire Thoros Gagarian invites five of his equally wealthy, arrogant and macho friends to vacation with him on Mora Utu, the magnificent island he has bought, having expelled the last remnants of the native population. Unknown to him, his friends and the six women invited as ``trophies'' for a week of sybaritic pleasure and sex in the sun, the departing natives have cursed the island, and Mora Utu will demand a sacrifice. When mob boss Tony Capuletti rapes Swedish model Marika, the men try to buy silence with a big check. The furious women leave the compound, but not before dismantling the airplane that is their only means of returning to civilization. Living in the wild, and counseled by Gagarian's Yaqui Indian servant, Nelida, the women bond, discover feminine empowerment and become ``a tribe now, a sisterhood.'' Some of the men, too, find new areas of sensitivity and vulnerability in themselves. A series of perilous misadventures for both sexes culminates in two violent deaths and much physical debilitation. Ultimately, the sexes are forced to take shelter together as a murderous typhoon slams down on the island. Cash-Spellman orchestrates a fast-moving plot with panache, weaving in plenty of explicit sex, action-packed adventure and even some credible characterization. She errs in making Nelida and her husband, Emilio, agents of mystical spirits; they talk to dolphins and make such statements as: ``She is on Death's schedule, but she has not yet been collected.'' (There is explicit acknowledgement of Clarissa Pinkola Estes's Women Who Run with the Wolves and other mystical writings.) Women readers probably will overlook this posturing, however, and enjoy the tale as engaging commercial fiction. Major ad/promo. (Jan.)