When I cracked open the novel Damage Control, I knew I’d have some good reading ahead. The dedication began, “This one’s for the perfumistas.” Add that the book’s author, Denise Hamilton (shown above right), is the Los Angeles Times’ fragrance columnist as well as a bestselling crime writer, and I was ready to call in sick and spend the day on the couch, book in hand.

Damage Control is about Maggie Silver, a budding perfumista and PR flack. She works for the Blair Company, a public relations firm that handles the big jobs. If a company wants word spread about its new potato chips, it can go elsewhere. The Blair Company steps in, for example, when a married governor knocks up his housekeeper then lives a double life with the resulting love child, or when a similarly married governor professes to have found his soul mate in South America.

In Damage Control, a senator’s aide is found murdered in circumstances that don’t reflect well on the senator. Maggie Silver is assigned to his case. The complication is that Maggie was good friends with the senator’s daughter, Annabelle, until Annabelle was sexually assaulted when they were teens. Maggie’s relationship with Annabelle was borderline obsessive — Annabelle had the cultured, coddled life Maggie desired (not to mention the mother with the bureau stocked with Guerlain Vol de Nuit). Covering this case means Maggie must deal with past as well as current puzzles…

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