cover image Playing for Love

Playing for Love

Jilly Johnson. Simon & Schuster (UK), $23 (288pp) ISBN 978-0-684-86827-1

British actress, model, theater and TV personality Johnson's first novel to be published here is a melodramatic trifle, a tale of revenge that is occasionally fun as over-the-top camp. At age 28, Grace Madigan appears to be fortune's darling. Starring in the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Romeo and Juliet, she has the London theater world at her feet when Hollywood comes knocking with film offers. All is not bliss, however. Rendered sexually fearful by a schoolgirl trauma, Grace already has experienced one failed marriage. Compounding her pain is the fact that her controlling parents disapprove of her career. Then, just before she leaves for the States, her best friend is stabbed to death. Once in the U.S., Grace is on location in Miami when her path crosses that of tennis sensation Lloyd Davies, a childhood friend of her beloved brother, James. But by now success has spoiled Grace. Will Lloyd still be around when Grace finally comes to her senses and decides to take a chance on love? And what of the threatening notes and other stabbing deaths that trail in Grace's wake? Will she be the next victim? Hampered by an insecure, weepy heroine, the story reads more like the clich d ""star is born"" stories of earlier decades than the contemporary novel it's intended to be. The dialogue spoken by the Hollywood types is howlingly false and the Miami cops fare no better in the lingo department. Obtuse in the extreme, and with limited language skills, they use Briticisms (""I gotta get my arse up to West Palm Beach again""). The romantic story line reinforces the anachronistic belief that all good relationships begin with a firm spanking. As for the mystery behind the stabbings, the characters ignore the obvious culprit in favor of the preposterous, leaving the reader the sole proprietor of common sense. (Jan.)