If you were any where other than Jane Stanton Hitchcock's book party at Cafe Milano last Thursday night, you were at the wrong party. Her latest tomb, "Mortal Friends", is not only a mystery to die for, but an invitation to guess who's who in the thinly veiled book about Washingtonians amid high society and politicians.....not necessarily a list you don't want to be on. Her husband Jim Hoagland and she spend a lot of time walking through Montrose Park in Oak Hill Cemetery which lead her to her current book. "I can't help it you know, I wake up thinking a serial killer is loose. .. a body in Montrose Park..... I like to be twisty in my book. I like things not to be what they seem. I felt that this was a really good opportunity to get to know another side of Washington that social people really don't see." So in Moral Friends, there is a policeman who comes to my heroine and says, "I believe that there maybe a killer hiding in plain sight in society, and you seem to know about society, and in order to know the true civil world, you have to know what the lies are." "I kept going to these dinner parties and thinking, okay, would I know evil if it sat next to me?" Think Ted Bundy. "Ted Bundy, my poster boy. God, I would have dated Ted, in fact, I did date Ted. I was in Aspen around the time he was there. I had long dark hair, parted in the middle, the perfect candidate and I think that's a very important thing to realize when you look at other people. You are going to trust people who look more like you do, and that's what this book is about in many ways that the female is trying to--you know, who do you really trust and what do you really know about people? Do you know it's simply because they tell you. It is amazing how people check what it is that they're tell you." "All mystery writers are killers at heart. I remembered Churchill said, "Now the truth is so important that she must be surrounded by a bodyguard of lies." "Well in mystery writing, it's just the opposite. The lie is so important that you have to be surrounded by these truths." Can't tell you more since Jane 'borrowed' my book to autograph for Dr. Jill Biden. Playing the guessing game: Andrea Mitchell & Alan Greenspan, Janet Langhart & Bill Cohen Aniko Gaal Schott, Ann & Lloyd Hand, Ann Jordan, Arnaud de Borchgrave, Ben Bradlee, Bob Schieffer, Buffy Cafritz, Capricia Marshall, Deborah Gore Dean, Diana Negroponte, Donna & Mack McLarty, Ina Ginsburg, Jane Harmon, Jim & Kate Lehrer, John Negroponte, Judith Terra, Liz Stevens, Lucky Roosevelt, Kevin Chaffee, Michael Beschloss, Mike Peabody, Nini Ferguson, Rima Al-Sabah, Sally Bedell & Steve Smith, Sally Quinn, Susan Blumenthal, Susan Eisenhower, Walter & Didi Cutler and Winston Bao Lord.
Photo: Jane Stanton Hitchcock earlier in the day at Nathans.
