Dan's Book Review: The Vanishing A-List

By Jim Marquardt

The prologue that opens The Vanishing A-List by Diane Ketcham raises hope that this might be an enjoyably "trashy" novel to take on vacation. Blonde, beautiful and wealthy Paine Hayes, daughter of billionaire Charles Hayes, is kidnapped as she arrives home from a Hamptons cocktail party in her Mercedes. There's even a little sexual titillation to get things rolling.

Alas, our hopes are quickly dashed, which is too bad. Escape books provide a needed distraction in our crazy world. How often do you want to read about Iraq or the shaky economy? Trashy novels serve up colorful characters, gossipy descriptions of glamorous locales, graphic sex and an intricate plot, all in bite-sized chapters. Unfortunately The Vanishing A-List characters are colorless, the places that should be fascinating - the Hamptons, the Florida Keys, Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Palm Beach - are barely described, you may as well be in Bridgeport. The plot defies belief. Ketcham only scores well in the short chapter department - there are 82 chapters in the 329-page book.

The story would be a good memory exercise for senior citizens. By page 18, twelve characters have been introduced and by page 50 you have 21 to cope with. Just coming up with names for the characters must have been tough, and the author apparently ransacked the phone book, though it's doubtful you'd find these names in a normal community.

The heroine, Agatha Jasmine Billings, also known as "A.J." or "Jazz," has so many conflicting traits that it's hard to know her. One moment she is the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the NY Trib, the next moment she's hopping into bed with Congressman James Fenimore "Wit" Whitman, who she just met in a hotel bar. We know she is sensitive because of the cute relationship she has with her dog Willie. Wit's beautiful sister Chris is abducted along with many other beauties on the A-List. There's the aforementioned Paine Hayes, Fanee, a French model, Jessica Lawrence, an Oscar-winning movie star, Kensington Washington, a direct descendant of, yes, the Father of our country, Spring Bellingham, a Michelle Pfeiffer look-alike, Tracey Wise, a singer and Eva Long, an interior designer who hangs herself, perhaps to escape this novel. All these celebrity A-Listers are drugged and transported to a private island off Florida by sex fiend Sebastian Guyera and his depraved partners.

Sebastian's father Armando, a wealthy Miami importer whose trade includes stolen art, bought the island for his son probably hoping to confine Sebastian's stupidity to fishing and surfing. Sebastian could have satisfied his lust in fleshpots all over the world without getting into trouble with the law. But no, he insists on kidnapping prominent women and being an equal opportunity defiler, men too, including Jeff Worthington, TV actor and nephew of a major Republican fundraiser, and Sam Blake, a society photographer. Sebastian's criminal behavior is understandable - as a pimply adolescent he was scorned by pretty girls.

Once it dawns on Jazz's mother, Delilah Cordelia Billings (aka Deli) and other family and friends that their beautiful A-Listers have disappeared, they finally get private investigators and FBI agents on the case. One of the FBI guys, Reuben "Ben" Luvana, turns out, in an attempt at intrigue, to be Arthur, a member of Sebastian's motley band.

Though Ben keeps making crude passes at her, our Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter trusts him more than the good FBI guy, Ron Graham, who you can tell from his name is boring and dithering. She lets Ben talk her out of a date with Wit and lures her to pleasure island where Sebastian is planning a New Year's Eve gala and a gala interlude with Jazz. He also intends to terminate the A-Listers, especially Paine Hayes, who's been around since the prologue. For her, he has in mind something involving M-80 firecrackers.

Meanwhile, Congressman Wit Whitman, whose secretary is secretly in love with him and has deflected several crucial messages from Jazz, is closing in with the help of the good FBI guy. Three military helicopters arrive in the nick of time to pluck Jazz from island waters, perhaps for her to win another Pulitzer and Wit to run for president and rid the country of sex fiends. Just before the rescue, ace reporter Jazz wonders if "Maybe the cavalry was coming."

The plot abounds with incisive narration - "The blood in her face did a free fall," "He kissed her in places she didn't know could quiver like that," "Her mind spun," "Why was God testing her so?" and "A sense of dread passed over her."

Over the phone, Wit pants, "I want more, Jazz. I can't stop thinking of you......of your mouth, your body, I love your breasts. Have I told you that?"

Congress is in worse shape than we ever feared.

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