Cruelty Free

A decade before the story's present, Lila Devlin is a famous Hollywood actress, married to a movie star and raising her baby daughter, Josie. Then Josie is kidnapped from the family home and never seen again. The press, the police and a public hooked on true crime brand Lila the Unfit Mother, and she vanishes from view.

Now she comes back to Los Angeles with a plan to remake herself and honor Josie's memory through a radical new skincare brand. She intends to move on with forgiveness, until a meeting with a parasitic blogger ends with him dead.

With her devoted publicist Sylvie at her side, Lila starts hunting through the city. The company's secret ingredient comes from the bodies that pile up, and the brand takes off.

This is a dark, funny satire aimed at celebrity culture and toxic beauty standards, and it is also a study of grief and womanhood. Interview transcripts and article excerpts are woven through the narrative, so it reads in part like a true-crime story.

As sales climb, Lila starts to uncover what really happened to her daughter. Her murderous side business puts the new life she has built at risk.