Not So Perfect Strangers

At the start of this overly ambitious thriller from Stratton, a pseudonym for romance author Shelly Ellis (the Gibbons Gold Digger series), 36-year-old Tasha Jenkins flees a burning Washington, D.C., house and reports the fire to 911, only later to confess to a firefighter that she set the blaze. Flashbacks introduce Madison Gingell, whose house will be burned down, apparently by Tasha. Both women are in unhappy marriages, and after a chance encounter Madison suggests they kill each other’s spouses as a way of both freeing themselves and avoiding being charged with murder. Maryland police detective Clayton Simmons suspects Tasha didn’t set the fire and wonders why she confessed to doing so. During an interview with Tasha, when Clayton reveals that a man and woman were found shot in the Gingell home, Tasha reacts with surprise. Multiple other twists compensate only in part for underdeveloped characters. Readers interested in a better riff on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train plot would be better served by Larry Beinhart’s The Deal Goes Down. (Mar.)