Best Revenge

R. Allen Anne

Description

When Camilla Randall, a 1980s New York debutante, is assaulted by her mother's fiance, then loses all her money in the Savings and Loan Scandal, she seeks refuge with her gay best friend in California. But her friend has developed heterosexual tendencies and an inconvenient fiancee, so Camilla has to move in with wild-partying friends. When a TV star ends up dead after one of their parties, Camilla is arrested for his murder. She has to turn to a friendly sanitation worker, her dotty octogenarian neighbour and her nasty, but oh-so-sexy boss to prove her innocence.

Informations

• Publié par: Mark Williams international Digital Publishing
• Date de parution: 05 avril 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908961044
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Best Revenge

A Camilla Randall Mystery


by


Anne R. Allen




This edition© Anne R. Allen 2011


First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Babash-Ryan
Original copyright © 2005 Anne R. Allen




All rights reserved.



ISBN Number: 978-1-908961-04-4



Published by Mark Williams international Digital Publishing.
www.mwidp.com

Formatted by Epublishing Media Services.
www.epublishingmediaservices.com


Cover design by Kate Smith.
Table of Contents

Publisher's Statement
Table of Contents
Introduction by Saffina Desforges
Chapter 1-1982: Morning in America
Chapter 2-King of the Chickenburgers
Chapter 3-Back to the Closet
Chapter 4-The House Of Nevermore
Chapter 5-Tramps Like Us
Chapter 6-Avocados in the Hot Tub
Chapter 7-Making Guacamole
Chapter 8-TV Sex See Page Six (A)
Chapter 9-The Loneliness of the Shoe
Chapter 10-Mr. DeMille’s Bad Dream
Chapter 11-Biting Burglars
Chapter 12-A Pleasant Bus Ride and Other Surprises
Chapter 13-Living Well
Chapter 14-Encounters: With Penguins and Others
Chapter 15-New Furniture and Old News
Chapter 16-The Doctor is In
Chapter 17-A Birthday Party
Chapter 18-Dinner for Two
Chapter 19-A Proposal of Marriage
Chapter 20-Dinner for Four
Chapter 21-Clark Gable’s Ears
Chapter 22-La Traviata
Chapter 23-Mrs. Lester Stokes Does Not Go To Bergdorf’s
Chapter 24-Phase Two
Chapter 25-A Polka Dot Submarine
Chapter 26-Life in Aspic
Chapter 27-Footsteps in the Dark
Chapter 28-A Chocolate Pudding Attack
Chapter 29-Pink Mink and Other Disasters
Chapter 30-The Weather in Acapulco
Chapter 31- Fast Cars and Jet-Set Orgies
Chapter 32-A Free Woman
Chapter 33-Chocolate Pudding Again
Chapter 34-Making Whoopee
Chapter 35-Violet Rushes Forth
Chapter 36-The Triumph of Dr. Lavinia
Chapter 37-Living Well is the Best Revenge
Sample Chapter - The Gatsby Game
Sample Chapter - Sherwood Ltd
Sample Chapter - Ghost Writers in the Sky
Sample Chapter - Food of Love
Introduction by Saffina Desforges.


This prequel to the Camilla Randall Mysteries takes us back to the time when the teenaged Camilla first met her lifelong best friend, Plantagenet Smith.
Long before the events of Ghostwriters in the Sky and Sherwood, Ltd , in 1980s New York, a time of big hair, coke-fueled society parties, and the rise of the greed-is-good One-Percenters, teen heiress Camilla Randall befriends Plantagenet Smith, a penniless young gay playwright. But they quarrel and he disappears in the direction of California.
Soon after, Camilla is assaulted by her mother’s fiancé, smeared in the newspapers by a sexy muckraking journalist, and her family loses all their money in the Savings and Loan banking scandal. She hops into her DeLorean and sets off in search of Plantagenet, whom she realizes is her only real friend.
But when she arrives in the Golden State, she discovers Plant has developed strange heterosexual tendencies and an inconvenient girlfriend. Camilla moves in with some wild-partying college friends, and when a famously debauched TV star tries to seduce her and then ends up dead, Camilla is arrested for his murder.
In order to clear her name and find the real killer, she turns to a friendly sanitation worker, a dotty octogenarian neighbor and the hot muckraking newspaperman who ridiculed her-who also happens to be her boss. 
This “screwball” romantic comedy/mystery is reminiscent of the popular film comedies of the 1930s and 40s, the kind that starred Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, or Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. It’s a romp of a read that you’ll find hard to put down.
Sample chapters from Anne’s other works, including the other two books in the acclaimed Camilla Randall Mysteries series and Anne’s stand-alone novels Food of Love and The Gatsby Game , can be found at the end of this book.

Saffina Desforges
UK best-selling author of Sugar & Spice and the Rose Red crime thriller series and the YA Holocaust novel Anca’s Story .
Chapter 1-1982: Morning in America

Camilla fought her rising panic by clutching Plantagenet’s strong, Armani-clad arm as the Mâitre d’ led them to their usual table at Votre Maison .
She had no idea how any debutante survived without a gay best friend.
Plant seemed to read her mind, as always.
“Stop worrying, darling. You look beautiful. Heartbreakingly beautiful. Any lurking Italian princes will be consumed with remorse for letting you slip through their cold, Eurotrash fingers.”
Camilla kissed him on the cheek. Dear, dear Plantagenet. He was her fashion consultant, crying shoulder, and all around Gibraltar. She couldn’t have made it through the horrors of the past month without him.
Plus he was the handsomest man in the room, which made it so much easier to face the possibility of running into her maybe-former boyfriend, Prince Aldo de Saxi-Cadenti. Aldo hadn’t called since her father’s funeral-with the same inexplicable cruelty as every other A-list friend she used to have.
As they were seated at their lovely, well-lit table, Camilla envied the underdressed nobodies seated in the dark corner near the kitchen. Nobodies were allowed to hide in shadows-and even appear in public with puffy faces and red eyes-without anybody from the society pages commenting on how they were wallowing in grief.
Camilla was a Randall. Randalls did not wallow.
She squeezed Plant’s hand. “Is the make-up still covering the red around my eyes? I can’t let Sybil D-D know I’ve been crying. I don’t want to have to talk about Aldo.”
Plantagenet gave her another look of reassurance as he ordered champagne. He was letting her blame the weepiness on her disappointment about Prince Aldo-although they both knew she’d been planning to dump him anyway.
Plant was the perfect friend. He always knew when not to pry.
“You look serene and happy, Camel darling. The prettiest girl in the room. Sybil D-D will turn positively chartreuse with envy.” He gave a stagy look at his watch. “How can that scrawny old cat keep the Debutante of the Year waiting?”
Camilla prayed Sybil Diaz-Dreyfuss, the columnist from the New York Guardian , wouldn’t show up at all. The whole celebutante thing was getting old-and Plantagenet was right about Sybil being a cat. After all the strange coldness from her so-called friends, Camilla feared Sybil might have something even worse in store.
Plantagenet had dressed Camilla in Porfirio couture-a silk suit in what he called “the color of fresh money” and done deft things with green eye shadow and bronzer, but she knew she didn’t look her best.
He grabbed her hand with sudden urgency.
“Good God. Look who’s here.” He gestured at a khaki-clad man now making something of a stir as he entered the glittering dining room. “Park Avenue isn’t exactly his stomping ground.”
 Camilla didn’t have to be told to look. Although the khaki man wasn’t quite as beautiful as Plantagenet, and wore clothes that would have sent Prince Aldo jumping off the Castel Sant’Angelo, he had a profile special-ordered from Mount Olympus, a tanned, muscular body, and quantities of unruly black hair that a stylist would die to tame.
“That’s Jonathan Kahn,” Plantagenet said. “He’s the reporter who leaked the classified papers on nuclear dumping. It’s because of him the President says the Guardian should either shut down or register as an agency of a foreign power.”
Camilla laughed. She hated politics, but she did enjoy President Reagan’s jokes.
Plant leaned in to whisper. “Last year he went to Nicaragua with that pro-Sandinista group of Angela Harper’s. Got himself shot by the Contras.”
“He seems to have recovered,” Camilla couldn’t help saying. “Very nicely.”
“Look, but don’t touch, Camel darling. He broke Angela’s heart.”
Camilla couldn’t picture that gorgeous man with some ancient ’60s folk singer. She was about to ask for the dish when she felt one of Plant’s Guccis jab her shin.
She looked up into the steely blue eyes of Mr. Jonathan Kahn himself.
“Camilla Randall?” He offered his hand. “Jonathan Kahn. New York Guardian .”
She squeaked, feeling like some idiot sub-deb.
“But I thought Sybil D-D…”
 “Ms. Diaz-Dreyfuss is on her way to London. An emergency with Lady Di’s wardrobe, I understand. I’m her replacement. Editors do like to have their fun.”
Camilla giggled. But Mr. Kahn didn’t even smile. In fact, he studied her with such concentration she had to touch her shoulder to check if her bra strap was showing.
Plantagenet cleared his throat.
“Please sit down, Mr. Kahn,” Camilla said, finally remembering her manners. “This is my friend Plantagenet Smith.”
“The playwright?” Mr. Kahn shook Plant’s hand. “I’ve still got the cast album from Boadicea! knocking around my apartment somewhere. You wrote that, didn’t you?”
“The book and lyrics are mine.” Plantagenet gave his most charming grin. “But don’t hold it against me. I’ve outgrown rock music and naked dancers in blue body paint. I’m working with Edmund Quail now-on a musical about Alexander the Great.”
Camilla always cringed for Plantagenet when he talked about Alexander! She knew he hadn’t written a word since he moved in with Edmund over a year ago. He wasn’t much more than Edmund’s houseboy.
“So, Ms. Randall.” Mr. Kahn took a notebook from his pocket. “Last February you were named ‘Debutante of the Year.’ How has the year been for you?”
“Nice. A lovely year.” Camilla accepted another glass of champagne as Plantagenet and Mr. Kahn reached an agreement with the waiter about the entrées. She hoped Mr. Kahn wouldn’t comment on the fact she was only nineteen. It was so unfair they’d raised the New York drinking age to twenty-one last year.
“What’s been lovely?” Mr. Kahn turned back to Camilla. “The press coverage? Parties? Clubbing?”
 “I adore parties and clubs.” She relaxed a bit. Talk of night life was pretty safe territory. “They get tiring sometimes, but mostly it’s all fun. The press, well…” She searched for somet