The setting is Upper East Side New York in 2008. Daisy
Greenbaum is a socialite married to Dick, and they have two
young twin girls, Avery and Easton. It seems like a perfect
life - until you look closer. Dick's job is high-pressure;
he works for The Bank, doing things with derivatives and
debts and such. In the meantime, Daisy is balancing her
committee schedule with Avery's therapy schedule and
Easton's social calender (Easton is the popular twin, while
Avery is the outcast).
As if this weren't all enough, one day Dick stumbles upon
something at work that jeopardizes his position at The Bank.
When he is told (and subsequently tells Daisy) that plans
are in place to terminate him, Daisy sees her (and her
family's) way of life crumbling in an instant. She knows
that she must take action, and quickly.
Like any good mother, Daisy wants to protect the way of life
that her daughters currently know and love, which sometimes
means taking drastic steps. What may as a surprise to some
readers is how calculated and nonchalant Daisy is as she
goes about her business, as one might not expect a
socialite to be able to pull off the things that she so
expertly does.
While I enjoyed the different components of the book and
seeing how all of the various puzzle pieces fit together,
the major criticism is that some of the financial
discussions were way over my head. When Dick discussed his
job at The Bank, I empathized all too well with his
eight-year-old daughters who never quite understood what he
did all day at work. If the author's intent was to talk
over the reader's head and make them feel confused and
impressed by the financial buzzwords, she well succeeded.
However, this also decreased my interest in these parts of
the book.
The rest of the book, however, was terrific. Molly
Jong-Fast's wit is superb, and the way she portrays the
Upper East Side family life is fascinatingly intriguing.
The drama of the socialite creates quite the feeling of
schadenfreude, more often than not. This was a book I found
difficult to put down once I got into it.
Upper East Side socialite Daisy Greenbaum is accustomed to
the finer things—designer clothes, summers in the Hamptons,
elite private school educations for her daughters, and a
staggeringly expensive Park Avenue apartment. But Daisy
finds her well-heeled lifestyle on precarious footing after
her husband, master of the universe Dick Greenbaum, learns
about some shady dealings that threaten his position at The
Bank.
Daisy refuses to allow her family to slip down the social
ladder, so she devises a madcap plan: Anyone who jeopardizes
her place at the top will simply have to be dispatched—six
feet under. From Dick’s arrogant boss to his scheming former
mistress to a pair of nosy bloggers, Daisy’s hit list is a
who’s who of big names with even bigger secrets. But with
the body count rising as the Dow Jones falls, can Daisy
really get away with murder?
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