Damage Control

This is an exhilarating suspense thriller

In 2009 in Los Angeles thirtyish middle class Maggie Silver works for Blair Company crisis management firm. Her clients include the rich and famous up and down the Pacific Coast Highway while her job description is insuring the spin favors her firm's affluent customers.

The firm's Jack Faraday assigns Maggie and others to work with U. S. Senator Henry Paxton. When she was a teen she was best friends with his daughter Anabelle, but they no longer talk to each other following a tragedy. Maggie wants out but has no choice but to be part of the team as she supports her ailing mom. Paxton's assistant twentyish media director Emily Mortimer was found dead; the senator is the last known person to have seen her at a bar at midnight.

This is an exhilarating suspense thriller in which justice is irrelevant as the truth does not matter; only how good the spin is. Character driven by Maggie, as an adult she struggles with her memories of an idyllic time that she begins to wonder how Eden it truly was. Readers will appreciate Damage Control as the wealthy use experts to spin the media to tell the story their way.

Harriet Klausner

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

Preposterous on so many levels. Red herrings abound. Character

Preposterous on so many levels. Red herrings abound. Characters are introduced and disappear without explanation.

I cannot say enough about the writing style of Denise Hamilton.

I cannot say enough about the writing style of Denise Hamilton. She not only knows the streets of LA, she breathes life into them through her every written word. It's chilling to read her books. Denise has the skill of a fine surgeon, knowing just when and where to place the razor and how to cut to release that last shred of skin between our belief and disbelief. Her hand is quick and so adept we hardly know we've been "had" until it's over and we're shocked to see our heart in our hands. She is a master writer of this genre. I have a feeling Denise is a masterful writer of anything she chooses to put her mind to. I thinks she's spoiled me for reading anyone else in noir fiction, female or male.

What I found most exciting about Ms Hamilton's writing in both the novels I read (and her short story "Midnight In Silicon Alley" in her L. A. Noir Collection) was her ability to use an ordinary pace, an simple staccato of words and sentences to lay out the most astounding and dark situations. A clip of interchange between characters that conveyed more than just the words themselves...It was like reading the movements of a cat studying it's prey before pouncing! Glorious and so unusual I wanted to clap and yell, "Yes!!" several times through the books. This kind of writing is intense and so freaking rare!

What was new to me about these books among all the books I've read? The dark tone of "voice." The descriptions of the underbelly of the city and the surrounding scruff and side-beaches. The brilliance of too much light at night and used tinsel garishness by day, both literally and figuratively. The "invisible" people that stray and strand along the sidelines of the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and LA. Concepts of evil hidden behind the flat, compliant faces of ordinary kids in designer label outfits- -apparently, no drugs applied. How swiftly calm, security and routine can be smashed in a smoky room, in an unknown section of town where you weren't aware that nobody speaks English, and you don't know how to get a ride home. The multi-cultural nature of a city that is a microcosom of our country and where we're headed.

I've tried to convey to you how unusual and how brilliant a writer Denise Hamilton really is. "Damage Control" will send ice splints through your veins. "The Jasmine Trade" will change the way you look at Asian children and their parents for a while; at least it changed things for me. I haven't been able to put these books, and Ms Hamilton's short story out of my mind. I keep returning to parts of them long after I've read them. When studying fine arts and art history I learned that one of the tests of a masterpiece is that we can't stop looking at it. We find ourselves continually drawn back into the painting, finding more things of interest and wanting to look at it longer. There is much of this quality in Denise Hamilton's books. They just keep coming back to haunt you.

A Wonderful Thriller!

Damage Control is a complex psychological thriller set in current day Los Angeles, peopled with vibrant characters battling fears of survival and loss, tautly stretched loyalties, and well-camouflaged villains.

The story begins when Maggie Silver-a young PR rep who's struggling to support her cancer-stricken mother and keep a house with an upside-down mortgage-is assigned to insulate Senator Henry Paxton and his family from the press by spinning the sordid facts of his aide's murder and protecting the family's reputation. After all, the Senator has been tapped for a much higher office, and chances are he'll move upward quickly.

The problem is Maggie knew the Senator's family when she was a teenager and was the poor church mouse best friend of rich kid Anabelle Paxton. Years have passed, and in the time since they grew apart, neither has acknowledged or faced the memories of the one horrible night they shared on the beach.

Hamilton weaves some interesting themes throughout this complicated novel, including subtly erotic romance, power struggles and cover-ups, and dangerous flirtations with potential killers.

The author's style is breezy and smooth, and occasionally she sneaks in some lovely poetic passages, well worth savoring.

"At the cemetery, Anabelle threw the first spade of earth on the coffin. The wind shifted and ash fell softly and silently over us all, blanketing the dark soil and clinging greasily to our clothes, reminding us of where we'd come from and where we would all return."

(Note: the "ash" here refers to cinders from the wildfires burning nearby)

Most intriguing was the author's inclusion of scents into the story. Hamilton's descriptions of the perfumes Maggie loved and remembered was evocative and poetic, and her use of fragrance as a vital clue was brilliant. Her passages reminded me of my own passion for essential oils and their subtle, complex aromas capable of transporting one to places quite foreign and delicious. I discovered after reading the book that Denise Hamilton spends time with fragrance in a professional capacity (she blogs about perfume, for one thing) and this explained the interesting additions.

Only in LA

By now we are used to novels that take place among the glitterati of Los Angeles. As if it does not have enough of its own, author Denise Hamilton imports a United States Senator who never seems to go to Washington as the centerpiece of her scandal ridden Damage Control. It's a pretty interesting tale of scandal, intrigue, and cover-up. The twist on this one is the young PR woman, Maggie Silver, who wonders how much she can trust her won company as their ethics seem questionable. Will they go to any length to protect a client? Character development is not always the strong point of this novel, but there is enough interest among the intrigue to keep the reader going.

B&N Mystery Blog Gives "Damage Control" Stellar Review

bookclubs[dot]barnesandnoble[dot]com/t5/Ransom-Notes-The-BN-Mystery-Blog/The-Spin-Doctors/ba-p/1164690

"I remember reading Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 sometime in high school and finding the concept of 'firemen' in the future being those who start controlled fires - not primarily those who put out wild ones - a fantastical conceit so far removed from reality that it was difficult to take seriously. How naive I was. Today it seems that the best and brightest from every skill set are scooped up, specialized and privatized before they even finish a formal education and used to reverse engineer pre-determined ideals for their employers. I mean, which is the more lucrative field for a doctor, stitching up the wounded or carving up the healthy for cosmetic results? Which lawyers are most highly paid - those who defend the defenseless against the machine or those who manipulate and exploit the machinery for maximum benefit?

At the center of Denise Hamilton's new stand alone mystery, Damage Control is Maggie Silver. She used to be a journalist, but the old grey mare ain't what she used to be, (the journalism trade that is, not Maggie, who's a smart, savvy, sexy young woman who could have the world) and she's followed the money into a job with the most sought-after PR firm in L.A. (possibly the world). She's paying a price for her position though - on call twenty-four-seven and working long, intense hours when she is on the clock, so that despite her obvious assets, her personal life is remarkably sparse. But Maggie and her team are experts at spin, and know how to get out ahead of any scandal, any story threatening the career of a famous actor, athlete, public or private figure with the scratch to retain them. This is where the investigative reporters, and journalism majors of her generation can practice their skills and be duly appreciated and compensated. Who better than a well-schooled journalist to handle a story's facts and circumstances like a basketball (it only bothers her a little bit).

Enter Senator Henry Paxton of California and exit Emily Mortimer (no, not that actress) his former aid in charge of (among other things) the senator's personal Twitter feed (I am available for this job if anyone is looking to hire, btw) until her untimely demise and unfortunate circumstances. She'd been discovered murdered in her own hotel room, expired in a state of post coital nudity.

Poor Senator Paxton. Just when he didn't need one, a big, fat, juicy scandal drops on him as if from a flock of pigeons. Good thing he's got Maggie's boss on speed-dial. Maggie is asked to take point on this one and reluctantly agrees, unsure of how much her history with the Paxton family is going to help or hinder her career. You see, Maggie and the Senator's daughter Anabelle were best friends as teenagers until that night at the party when.

Hamilton has constructed an intricate and finely-balanced thriller that joins all the flavors and worlds of southern California into a heady cocktail of sex, celebrity and consequence. Perhaps the year's final summer read, it's briskly paced and effortlessly consumed. Still, the high-gloss and bright colors of SoCal presented here, are merely a veneer stretched taught over much darker things beneath their surface.

Incidentally, Damage Control seems the perfect book to wrap up this particular summer with...

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