Reality TV may be the ultimate con game, as British author Val McDermid suggests in her entertaining novel "The Vanishing Point." With the consummate scam as its foundation, "The Vanishing Point" also explores motherhood and the lengths to which one may go to save a child.

As a ghost writer to the stars, Stephanie Harker understands the difference between a celebrity's public and private personas. But she isn't prepared for Scarlett Higgins, an uneducated reality star famous for spouting racial comments. After Scarlett becomes pregnant by Joshua Patel, an Asian deejay and minor British celebrity, she enlists Stephanie to write her memoir.

Their contact during the project blossoms into a real friendship. So when Scarlett is diagnosed with terminal cancer, she names Stephanie as sole guardian of her son, Jimmy, and then leaves all her money to charity so no family member will want to take charge of the child.

While Stephanie and 5-year-old Jimmy are going through airport security in Chicago, the boy is kidnapped by a man posing as a TSA agent. Typically Stephanie musters her fierce determination and all her storytelling skills to help an FBI agent try to save the boy. And McDermid fills the story with believable plot twists while delving into our fixation with celebrity.


Atlantic Monthly Press

$25, 448 pages