The Weekend

Subtitled A Novel of Revenge , this first novel demands to be read in one sitting. Bella, a London prostitute who has retired to a seaside flat in Brighton, begins a weekend crusade of vengeance against men after a Peeping Tom taunts her with violent threats and she hammers him to death. Virtually all of Bella's victims are abusive male chauvinists and weirdos: the kinky psychologist who smashes her in the mouth with his shoe, three wealthy young louts about to torch an old woman in an alley, the cultivated dentist who ties her to his steering wheel for forced fellatio, a rapist/slasher and other villains. Zahavi presents Bella as an Everywoman driven over the edge, tired of accommodating, placating and being trampled by men. What saves the story from becoming a lurid feminist cartoon is the author's first-rate literary craft, her glinting, rapier wit and staccato delivery charged with menace. Zahavi writes rings around longtime practitioners of the psychological thriller. Movie rights to Michael Winner. (Apr.)