Book Review: Readings

Animosity

Warner Books, 339 pp., $24.95

Warner Books is billing Animosity as the latest page-turner from the "master of sophisticated suspense," yet this compulsively readable yarn of art and obsession is neither sophisticated nor suspenseful. In fact, Animosity is propelled by all the wrong reasons, jettisoning characterization and plot mechanics for enough tawdry details to fill an entire summer's worth of trashy popular fiction. With copious amounts of sex, murder, and greed, Animosity provides plenty of grist for the book's trifecta of unintelligent characters to chew on; reading about their undoing turns out to be great fun.

Ross Marteau is Animosity's tortured artiste, a clay sculptor who "abandoned his early ideals and built a lucrative career on the smarmy nudes and busts of rich women." After a nasty fight with his current flame, Ross packs his bags in Paris and heads home to Texas to start fresh among the tranquility of his Hill Country villa. Ross quickly falls into a trap set by two beautiful sisters, one of whom asks to be sculpted only to reveal a grotesque hunch on her back. With Ross involved in a scheme to kill the sister's husband, the tale spins into a dither of salacious sex, blackmail, and deception suitable for only the finest of film adaptations available on the Cinemax network.

Lindsey creates an appealing atmosphere in which to set his tale; the Texas landscape comes to life as an environment as welcoming as it is volatile, and he describes the transcendent quality of ranch living with aplomb. If only his characters were given as much attention as his setting. Ross and the two sisters combined are as dumb as a ball of clay, none of them asking questions that even the most amateur sleuth would posit. Still, there's laughter to be had, and Lindsey serves up plenty with his overwritten prose, a mix of precision and hokum that finds details in the most awkward places ("The light through which he saw her breasts as he kissed them had become a sharp amethyst, a damascene shade that turned the red of the model's bed a saturated purple"). Grab a cocktail, Animosity, and a comfortable chair and you've got an evening for one. Just don't expect too much depth on the first date -- this one's best left a one-night stand.