Lovers and Liars - Hardcover

Beauman, Sally

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0449908801 ISBN 13: 9780449908808

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 1994

Synopsis

"Beauman manages to out-Krantz Judith."

PEOPLE

Assigned to expose the story of a lifetime, photographer Pascal Lamartine and reporter Gini Hunter penetrate the perfect facade of John Hawthorne, the charismatic U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, a man who is not what he seems. But beyond the scandalous web of deceit, betrayal, and desire they are about to unmask, Gini and Pascal must confront themselves and a past they share.

Deftly woven of dark secrets and unfolding deceptions, LOVERS AND LIARS is a romantic, suspenseful journey into the mysteries of the heart, where love can sustain the soul--or twist it cruelly.

A MAIN SELECTION OF THE BOOK-OF-THE-MONTH CLUB

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

From bestselling author Sally Beauman (Dark Angel, 1990; Destiny, 1987) comes this taut, smartly paced romantic thriller set in present-day London. Just after New Year's Day, a beautiful and exquisitely dressed young woman enters the main London office of Intercontinental Deliveries carrying four small parcels. The receptionist logs them in, preparing to send them to their various destinations in Paris, Venice, New York, and London. What the receptionist doesn't know is that each of these boxes contain's a pair of handcuffs and a woman's glove--a long black leather glove that smells strangely from some foul and feral substance. Within hours, two of the recipients--Pascal Lamartine, a Paris-based photographer, and Gini Hunter, a London-based reporter--are called to the editorial offices of Gini's newspaper and assigned to work on a sex-scandal story that concerns John Hawthorne, the handsome, charismatic American ambassador to Great Britain. Neither Gini nor Pascal immediately connects the strange packages with the assignment. They are too busy trying to gather clues about Hawthorne, a presidential hopeful with a ravishing wife named Lise, and trying to deal with the aftermath of their own short-lived but passionate affair in Beirut 12 years earlier. It seems that Hawthorne's fairy-tale marriage has begun to crumble: There are rumors of beautiful blonde call girls wearing long black gloves, secret trysts, violence. When Gini and Pascal learn of the gloves, they begin to connect the pieces and find themselves implicated in a dark, treacherous plot that involves sexual perversion, corruption, and murder. But this is only the beginning: As they continue to probe, they find that the story stretches farther back than they dreamed, to a tiny Vietnamese village called My Nuc, where unspeakable atrocities occurred. Beauman has written a sexy, nail-biting, page-turning thriller nicely spiced with just the right amounts of love and death. The erotic charge between Gini and Pascal--first denied, then succumbed to--is palpable and convincing, as is the compelling and morally ambiguous figure of John Hawthorne. (Book-of-the-Month dual selection for May) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Booklist:

Beauman, who assaulted the best-seller list in 1987 with Destiny, is almost certain to do it again. Her new novel starts out with a bang: in London, reporter Gini Hunter opens an unexpected package containing a pair of handcuffs; in Paris, Gini's former lover, French photographer Pascal Lamertine, gets his own mysterious parcel containing a silky black glove. Soon the two find themselves working together on a news story--investigating the rumors about John Hawthorne, the JFK-like American ambassador to England. Is he a sadist, a masochist, or maybe it's his wife who's the kinky one? Meanwhile, Gini and Pascal, who have not seen each other since their affair in war-torn Beirut 12 years before, must confront their own feelings while trying not to get entangled in the intricate web of passion and deceit swirling around the Hawthorne story. Unfortunately, Beauman spins the web for way too long. Most readers will be caught up for about the first two-thirds or so of the novel (just when they've invested too much to abandon it) but will then find their interest winding down as Gini and Pascal run into too many dead ends and too many dead bodies. Worse, the final chapters require more than one reading to figure out who actually done what, an arduous task after 500 pages of foreplay. Still, Beauman knows how to ladle up the requisite stew of passion, power, erotica, and evil, and with the help of an extensive ad campaign (and a 100,000-copy first printing), you can count on demand--and on weary patrons returning the book after its due date. Ilene Cooper

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0449908801
• ISBN 13: 9780449908808
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 582