Behind the Scenes - Hardcover

Jones, Rennie

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684807513 ISBN 13: 9780684807515

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

Declaring twenty years long enough to stay married to the same women, Roger Gainey decides to walk out on his wife, Sheila, his partner in an electronic retailing empire. She had been a college student whey they met; he had been a TV game show host. Roger's involvement with infomercials began almost accidentally, but he soon realized the potential inherent in combining entertainment and a sales pitch into a seamless whole. Together, Roger and Sheila created one of the most successful of the infomercials and ultimately came to own a prosperous home-shopping network, PCE-TV: Privacy, Comfort, Entertainment.
They have been a great team for so long that when Roger calmly tells Sheila he wants out of the marriage, their friends and business associates are stunned. But no one could anticipate Sheila's astonishment and, eventually, her fury. Devastated at first, Sheila blames herself, and remains hopeful that Roger will come back. When Derek Lang, their chief home-shopping competitor, approaches Sheila and suggests she join him in getting back at Roger, she rejects the idea immediately. It is only later - after she realizes that she must make a new life for herself, after she realizes that Roger is never coming back, after the divorce is final - that she wakes up to the anger that has been building in her. It is only then that Sheila decides to take Derek up on his offer to join him in the boardroom and the bedroom. So when Derek is found murdered, the police naturally zero in on Roger. But, as they soon discover, there is a wealth of suspects.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews:

A debut novel chooses the infomercial industry as the setting for this wanly uplifting tale of a woman's post-divorce blossoming. Roger Gainey has just walked out on Sheila, his wife of 20 years, but the two are still in business together: They have created PCE, one of the nation's top home-shopping networks, and Sheila owns the production company that feeds the network its infomercials. While still in the numb-with-grief phase, she gets a call from Derek Lang, the sharkish but devastatingly handsome owner of PCE's main rival, who points out to her that her company need not have an exclusive relationship with PCE. Sheila demurs; at this point she's still loyal to Roger. But time passes, and an increasingly angry Sheila decides to follow Derek's advice. She woos a fading celebrity to pitch some face creams, then takes the resulting videotape to Derek. Sparks fly. A torrid affair begins. Derek continues to see his other lovers but is dazzled by Sheila's new-found independence and business acumen. Could his arctic heart be melting? Maybe, but Sheila will never know after someone ends Derek's life by pumping bullets into his body. Roger is the prime suspect: He's known to be jealous of his ex-wife's new boyfriend, and the murder weapon belongs to him. But wise Detective Raintree rejects the pat solution and interviews some of the big-haired women and one-step-from-jail men who populate the home-shopping world. His investigations turn up nothing, and the pressure grows to arrest Roger. The beleaguered executive teams up with his ex to reinterrogate the suspects and lucks out when the real murderer is good enough to confess. While low-rent glitz and a wronged-woman's showy healing may appeal to some, the sleuthing here is clunky and the murderer's identity obvious. More disappointing, though, is the lack of behind-the-scenes dirt, or glimpses of the cynicism that implicitly drives the new breed of television hucksters. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684807513
• ISBN 13: 9780684807515
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256