cover image Drop Dead Gorgeous

Drop Dead Gorgeous

Heather Graham. Onyx Books, $6.99 (394pp) ISBN 978-0-451-40846-4

All of Lori Kelly Corcoran's friends are drop dead gorgeous, so which one grew up to be a serial killer in her hometown of Coconut Grove, and who murdered her pal Mandy Olin 15 years before? Lori, a teacher and sportswear designer, has returned to take care of her sick dad. Also back in town is Sean Black, the sexy boy from the other side of the tracks who was tried for Mandy's death and acquitted. Now a respected forensic archeologist, a professor and the author of bestselling thrillers (sorry, fiction is stranger than truth), Sean has returned to South Florida to sort out his troubled past. In Graham's first contemporary romance, she leaves behind the cliches of her reliably titillating bodice rippers for the cliches of romantic suspense, including the formula psychopath who speaks his inner monologues in italics. In a new twist, her beta couple indulge in a threesome, giving the experienced reader at least one coarse setpiece she has not read a thousand times over. (Aug.)