False Faces

A beautiful, enigmatic weekender in yuppie Seaside Harbor, N.Y., is murdered one balmy summer night in this hip and urbane debut work. Ostensibly, Linda Levinson had no enemies. However, accounts vary about her character, as police officer Joe DiGregorio (Joe D) learns when he's assigned to the homicide investigation. To her roommate, Linda was a good though moody friend. To her latest one-night stand, Linda was a castrating bitch. To her boss, the dead woman was ``quiet . . . sweet . . . didn't go out much.'' Turns out he was also her sugar daddy and extremely subjective about her personality. Acting on a hunch that the victim was leading a double life, Joe D discovers that Linda was running a stock-market scam. Her partner in the con becomes the chief suspect in her slaying, but soon turns up a homicide statistic himself. The murderer, trying to add Joe D to the growing list of victims, succeeds in putting him out of commission--briefly. Battered yet unstoppable, Joe D finds that the human ego can be a lethal weapon. With refreshing insight, Margolis conveys the intensity and the crass materialism that are the hallmarks of a certain breed of young professionals. (June)