Though readers might pick up this title hoping to find out more about the private life of bestselling novelist Patricia Cornwell, the real protagonist is FBI agent Margo Bennett, who struck up a brief affair with Cornwell in 1992 after the author visited the training center where Bennett worked. When Margo's husband, also a Bureau agent, finds out about his wife's liaisons, he exacts a horrifying, meticulously plotted revenge, covering his tracks with lies and working the system against her. Though covered in the press, journalist and author Rother (Naked Addiction) presents the full story from Bennett's perspective for the first time. The narrative is engaging if a little slow to start (covering the early years of her marriage), and Rother is a fine interviewer, able to penetrate some of Bennett's most traumatic memories. Rother's prose is not the most graceful, and recreated dialogue can feel forced, but Bennett's tale is gripping, and should appeal to those who want to see a different, darker and more personal side of the lives of FBI agents. (May) Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

As the subtitle adequately implies, this breathless, lurid account of two FBI agents' marriage-gone-wrong has it all, even though the crime writer alluded to, Patricia Cornwell, was only one of Margo Bennett's lesbian loves, and the Sapphic romance with Cornwell is hardly the big story here. Husband-and-wife cat-and-mouse shenanigans are the main event, for Margo's hubby, Gene, consumed by jealousy over his wife's dalliances, concocted an intricate plan to kidnap and murder her. This is all written up in made-for-TV style, with lots of snappy, re-created dialogue and terse descriptions, perfect for an hour's worth of A&E or Tru TV programming. Rother and Hess keep a fairly tangled story line perking sweetly along as readers share Margo's searching story. Is she gay? Is Gene trying to do her in? And what about the kids, especially in light of scenes like the one in which a Bennett daughter discovers Margo in the embrace of another woman? It's an Oprah-level tearjerker moment. A true-crime thriller with relationship issues! Is this a circulation booster, or what?--Tribby, Mike Copyright 2008 Booklist