Shannon is over 40 and recently divorced--in other words, just about the worst thing a person can be in the wealthy Georgia suburb of Buckhead. One of Us Is Dead, a fast-paced, melodramatic thriller from Jeneva Rose (The Perfect Marriage), follows Shannon and four other women--Karen, Olivia, Crystal and Jenny--as they vie for money and power and cling desperately to the vestiges of youth in their gilded corner of the world. Olivia, who doesn't care who she hurts or humiliates as long as her fortune and influence are trending upward, is the most devious and sociopathic of them all. Jenny is at the center of every conflict; she owns an exclusive salon where Buckhead women gather to be trimmed, waxed, buffed and polished--while exchanging catty gossip, of course. Because of her intimate role in these women's lives, Jenny knows all of their secrets. It's a superpower that might help her--if it doesn't kill her first.
The characters in this thriller, even the comparatively down-to-earth ones, are not particularly likable, but they are not supposed to be. Reading this novel feels like sitting in the high school lunchroom, waiting for a fight to erupt at the popular girls' table: seeing any one of them get swiped across the face by another's perfectly manicured claws would feel oddly satisfying. Characters who are worth rooting for eventually emerge, and a true villain becomes apparent. But the most enjoyable part of this witty and gripping whodunnit is taking a brief mental vacation into a world where appearances rule but nothing is what it seems. --Angela Lutz, freelance reviewer