by Jackie Collins
In the summer months, it is comforting to settle back with the familiar rituals - and a new Jackie Collins novel is a definite part of that experience. It's all here, Jackie lovers. Our fave heroine, Lucky Santangelo is back, with her mass of tangled jet curls, full sensual mouth and slender well-toned body. Not only that, but she's had time to build two casinos in Las Vegas, run her late husband's shipping empire and control a Hollywood studio, and she's still under 40. Oh, and to have a full and lusty love life. Ladies, there's a lesson to be learned here somewhere.
In Jackie's world, all blokes are studs - even the elderly ones - and all the women are lithe, bronzed and well stacked. Everyone's ready for hot and heavy sex at the drop of a modish hat. And would we have it any other way? And if nature has done the dirt and left you plain and dumpy and with an outrageous foreign (ie not American) accent, not to worry - plastic surgery, a good diet and a speech coach are all it takes to rectify the problem. This is the experience anyway of Donna Landsman with the icy slate eyes, who shapes up as a disappointingly weak adversary to the all-conquering Lucky.
I found it very comforting to have the following facts confirmed: money can't buy happiness; all Hollywood producers are sleazy scumbags; power is an aphrodisiac; launching a major modelling career is as easy as chatting up the right photographer at a party; once a Sicilian gangster, always a Sicilian gangster.
Jackie has packed plenty of value for money into her 538 pages - kidnapping, shyster lawyers, Armani, murder, workouts, vain actors, trendy directors, blackmail, revenge, a junior pyschopath (hey, watch out mom!), fashion models, and more excuses for sex than you could shake a stick at. There's even a nod towards feminism as Jackie ponders the disparity of male/female treatment in Hollywood. And at the centre, Lucky flicking back that mane of hair, and trying not to be too worried by the disappearance of husband number three while she copes with everything the Fates have in store for her this time around.
In short, it's the mixture as before. But isn't that why we love Jackie?