The Seduction

Despondent that her boyfriend has taken up with another girl, South Philadelphia teen Terri DiFranco is happily revived when she meets Peter, a handsome, red-bearded undercover cop (he says) who drives a jazzy Datsun 300ZX. Peter woos her and accustoms her to his adult advances, but it is Terri who builds a ""love nest'' in a deserted railroad station where she plans her first sexual tryst. Though Peter handcuffs her, Terri is trusting, until, at the height of the sexual frisson, Peter wraps a chain around her neckand strangles her. Weeks later, when journalist Laura Ramsey, who lives in the neighborhood, stumbles on the scene of the crime, the police let her see Terri's just-discovered body, swollen in corruption and bursting with maggots. Laura instantly determines to cover the story and help catch the killer. So begins this thrilling erotic mystery. Bourgeau (The Elvis Murders) has a nice talent for integrating subplots about the reporter, police, Society Hill crowd and the working class from South Philly. His pacing is nicely sustained and his thriller has a mesmerizing sexual allurethat is until he reveals the killer half-way through and substitutes a weak motivation of revenge for a more convincing psychopathology. The novel nevertheless ends on a seductively shocking note, confirming that, for the most part, Bourgeau has written a first-class thriller. (March)