Laura Walsh, a KEY News reporter, shares a professional background similar to Mary Jane Clark's. Both Clark and the heroine of her new romantic thriller spent time writing obituaries of celebrities who aren't dead yet, a ghoulish job that seems to be a steppingstone to greater responsibility. In Laura's case, it is correspondent for Hourglass, a 60 Minutes type of show whose star, Gwyneth Gilpatric, has taken a very personal interest in her. When Laura pitches a story on the now-defunct Palisades Amusement Park, where the remains of a 12-year-old boy who disappeared from the park over 30 years ago have just been found, she has no idea how close to home her investigation will lead. And when Gwyneth (a Diane Sawyer look-alike) plunges to her death from her terrace during her annual New Year's Eve party, Laura is still in the dark about the star's connection with the park, the missing boy, and her own father, whose ties to that murky past unravel as more killings occur. In fact, Laura's not particularly quick on the uptake, although she's certainly young, attractive, and blow-dried enough to play the-woman-in-danger role in this somewhat tepid story. More interesting by far is her best friend Francheska, whose married lover, a plastic surgeon trying to keep his Parkinson's disease a secret from his patients (particularly Gwyneth), tips Laura off whenever someone rich and famous enough to have an obituary prewritten goes on life support. Francheska's role in the plot is slowly revealed in a not very surprising finale that wraps up everything quite tidily. Not Clark's best effort, this novel will nonetheless please fans of the genre who are more interested in the romance than the thrills. --Jane Adams