FALSE PRETENSES

Coulter's first hard-cover: a grade-B business soap about a concert pianist turned CEO. As this tortured tale begins, Elizabeth Carleton is on trial for the murder of her millionaire husband. Everyone thinks she'll get the chair—after all, her prints are on the murder weapon, a silver ice pick. But at the last minute, a Connecticut psychologist named Christian Hunter testifies that Elizabeth was with him on the night of the crime. Trouble is, Elizabeth's never seen Hunter before in her life, which she wisely doesn't mention at the trial. After her release, she's insulted and threatened by the Carleton crew; their hostility boils over when Elizabeth wins big at the reading of the will and is made head of the conglomerate, ACI. But the Carletons set her up by paying her lover, an impoverished Boston Brahmin, to leak ACI secrets. Then Christian Hunter turns up again, asking at first only to hear Elizabeth play the piano, cuing her in on her boyfriend's betrayal. Soon Elizabeth's turned into a veritable tycoon, attempting a takeover of a Philadelphia electronics firm, falling in love with its stubborn president, Jonathan Harley. When Hunter learns that there's another man in Elizabeth's life, he shows his true stripes: He's a crazed murderer, responsible for her husband's death and now stalking Elizabeth. He's caught in the nick of time, however, and she and Jonathan live conglomerate-happy ever after. For those who can buy that there's life on Wall Street after the concert stage, and who like guys with lines like this: "I want your body, lady."