ONE OF US IS DEAD

A salon owner who serves the upper-crust women of Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood recalls the events that led up to the death of one of them.

Once Congressman Bryce Madison has divorced Shannon Madison, who still insists on using his last name, and marries trophy wife Crystal, the first order of business for Olivia Petrov, the monstrous vice chairwoman of the Buckhead Women’s Foundation, is to get Shannon voted out as the organization’s chairwoman—a decision she announces to Shannon in the middle of a gala Shannon organized. Olivia’s second order of business is to get Shannon nixed as a client by Jenny at the Glow Beauty Bar and unfriended by upscale realtor Karen Richardson, whose husband, plastic surgeon Mark Richardson, Olivia has called on repeatedly for services both professional and unprofessional. But Shannon’s not about to go gently into that good night; Karen is busy falling for Keisha, Jenny’s friend and employee; and Crystal, who’s hiding secrets of her own, may not be the ideal new member of the frenemies group Olivia has gathered around her. As she’s questioned by Detective Frank Sanford, Jenny is joined by four other narrators—Olivia, Karen, Shannon, and Crystal—who take turns dishing on each other and heartlessly detailing all the offensive and defensive moves each of them made. As Rose sends her juiced-up take on Clare Boothe Luce’s classic play The Women hurtling toward a conclusion whose only clearly preordained feature is that one of them will end up killing one of the others, suspense focuses mainly on why only one of these eminently deserving ladies ends up dead.

Sublimely bitchy. What else is there to know?