Hidden Agenda

Darlene Money was a writer in Mississauga, Ontario.

Anna Porter, publisher of Key Porter Books, has set her first novel, a suspense thriller, in the milieu she knows best. Judith, a journalist writing a profile of a Toronto publisher with financial problems, suspects his death under a subway train is not the suicide it appears to be. She is convinced of this when another publisher in New York, whom he is known to have telephoned the day he died, is killed. Judith and her glamorous friend Marsha, also in the New York publishing world, discover that a million-dollar manuscript is missing, and soon another publisher connected with the manuscript dies unexpectedly in London. Marsha finds the manuscript (which reveals a Western conspiracy to capitulate to communist imperialism in order to ensure human survival), claims it for her company, then loses it.

The first half of Hidden Agenda is fascinating as the mystery deepens, but the rest is disappointing. The denouement is hopelessly confusing and totally implausible. The movement back and forth between Judith in Toronto and Marsha in New York and London dissipates suspense, which is especially unfortunate while Judith’s children are being held by kidnappers. However, the glimpses of the world of publishing are authentic and entertaining, both heroines have interesting sexual relationships, and there is all the local color and the detail of clothing, make-up, and decor that one finds in a good romance. Hidden Agenda is satisfying as escape reading and a creditable though flawed first novel.