Genuine Lies

<p><P>A book to die for...<P>Eve Benedict is the last of the movie goddesses, a smoky-voiced sex symbol with two Oscars, four ex-husbands, and a legion of lovers to her name. There is no secret, no scandal she doesn't know. Now Eve has decided to write her memoirs&#151;no holds barred. All Hollywood begs her not to. But Eve has her reasons....<P>Julia Summers is the biographer Eve has handpicked to tell her story. Transported from her quiet life in Connecticut to glitzy Beverly Hills, Julia hates the limelight but loves her work&#151;and the home it built for the ten-year-old son she's raising alone. How can she refuse this chance of a lifetime? <P>But Eve's elegantly sexy stepson, Paul Winthrop, will challenge Eve's determination to tell her story&#151;and Julia's resolve to guard her heart. And as Julia learns just how far Eve's enemies will go to keep her book from publication, she also discovers that Eve has one last, dark secret to share. It is one that will change Julia's life&#151;and could cut it brutally short.</p><h3>Publishers Weekly</h3><p>Though the opening scene of this book refers to a murder, that deed only occurs 100 pages from the end of the story, when Roberts's ( Public Secrets ) disappointing tale finally heats up. Until then, the reader is dragged through the sordid secrets of a dreary collection of friends, lovers, employees and ex-husbands of 67-year-old film star Eve Benedict. She has hired Julia Summers to write an authorized biography, an expose of Hollywood life guaranteed to irk most of her past associates. And soon an aggressor swings into action: Eve and Julia receive threatening notes; Julia's rooms are broken into twice; finally, Eve is silenced permanently. So whodunit? The suspects are legion: Eve's nephew and agent, Drake Morrison, now fired and disinherited; former lover Michael Delrickio, whose mob connections Eve planned to reveal; actress Gloria DuBarry, a symbol of morality--provided no one learns of her affair and abortion. Or maybe it was Eva's devoted supporters Nina Soloman and Dorothy Travers, who are more than just staff. Or Eve's stepson, mystery writer Paul Winthrop, who has a marked interest in Julia. Or, as the police think, Julia herself. (Sept.)</p>