Damage Control

 

Critically-acclaimed author Denise Hamilton weaves an engrossing story of teenage friendship and adult betrayal, featuring a high-powered public-relations executive who gets swept up in murder and scandal involving a wealthy political family.

Maggie Silver is solidly middle class, with a mortgage to pay and an ill mother to support. She is doing her best to scramble up the ladder at an exclusive, high-powered PR firm in Southern California, whose clients are tabloid-worthy movie stars and famous athletes. Now, Maggie is being asked to take on her toughest client yet: Senator Henry Paxton, distinguished statesman from Southern California, who also happens to be the father of Anabelle, Maggie's former high school best friend.

Senator Paxton's young, female aid has been found murdered, and it is up to Maggie to run damage control and prevent the scandal from growing. Thrown back into the Paxtons' glamorous world, Maggie is unexpectedly flooded with memories from the stormy years in high school when her friendship with Anabelle was dramatically severed after a tragedy that neither of them has been able to forget. As Maggie gets further embroiled in the lives of the Paxtons', she realizes that the ties of her old friendship are stronger than she thinks. But how much of her own life can she sacrifice in order to save those she loves?

Riveting and suspense-filled, Damage Control examines the bonds of friendship and the human side of our craving for scandal and spectacle.

Read an excerpt. 

Praise for Damage Control:

  • "Denise Hamilton scores her largest and greatest triumph: Damage Control is a great mystery, and, much more rarely, a superb psychological thriller. Kudos to this brilliant talent." -- James Ellroy
  • "A riveting stand-alone thriller. . . . In a novel that marries celebrity culture, surf noir and the bonds of friendship, Hamilton is at the top of her game." -- Kirkus Advance
  •  "Excellent" -- Publisher's Weekly Starred Review
  •  "highly suspenseful...highly recommend...Hamilton...is a master of L.A. Noir." -- Library Journal Starred Review
  • "Hamilton provides an appealingly fallible protagonist, a keen sense of place, and a little romance and, although her plot has more twists and turns than Mulholland Drive, keeps the adrenaline pumping to the final pages." -- Booklist

Los Angeles Magazine: Review and Author Spotlight (1 Sep. 2011)

Los Angeles Times Q&A with Denise about Damage Control (4 Sep.)

NPR Books: Review of Damage Control (7 Sep.)

Book Reporter: Review of Damage Control (8 Sep.)

Arizona Republic Q&A with Denise about Damage Control (10 Sep.)

USA Today Review (14 Sep.)

KPCC Interview with Denise about Damage Control (17 Sep.)

Olfactarama Review (10 Oct.)

Murder by 4 Review (28 Oct.)