The List - Softcover

Martini, Steve

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0515121495 ISBN 13: 9780515121490

Publisher: Jove Publications, Inc., 1997

Synopsis

A bold and successful scheme to outwit the biggest players in publishing and film animates this novel by the bestselling author of The Judge--a suspenseful thriller in which the price of fame becomes terror.Gable Cooper has penned a novel to kill for. Six million dollars in book and film rights are looming just off the table for this unknown author. But there is a problem: Gable Cooper doesn't exist.Abby Chandlis is an attorney turned novelist and the creator of Gable Cooper. In an age when glamour, not grammar, is often the secret to selling books, Abby has an intriguing plan to keep her writing career alive: find a charismatic male face to pose as the phantom author for the knock-dead thriller she has written.Jack Jermaine is a man with dangerous good looks and a shadowy past. Trained by the military to kill, his obsession is to pen a blockbuster book. He has a trunk filled with rejected manuscripts and a gnawing problem that has turned him bitter: Jack can't write.Desperate to find a man to play the role of Gable Cooper, Abby is about to give up when Jack forces his way into her life. Reluctantly she is convinced that Jack's humor and looks will clinch success for her novel. She uses her legal wits and makes a deal with the devil. Jack becomes Gable Cooper.When Jack is propelled into the orbit of celebrity, Abby finds herself at once seduced and trapped by her own creation. Success turns to terror. The story careens from the Pacific Northwest to New York City and finally through the islands of the Caribbean as Abby races for her life to the one person she can trust--the one person who can prove to the world that she wrote the novel, and put an end to the nightmare that was once her dream, the dream of making The List.

About this title

About the Author:

Steve Martini, a former trial attorney, has worked as a journalist and capital correspondent in the California State House in Sacramento. He has been engaged in both public and private practice of law. He lives on the US West Coast.

From Kirkus Reviews:

So you thought it was all fun and games having a breakout novel? Come listen to Martini, on leave from his series about defense attorney Paul Madriani (The Judge, 1996, etc.), spin this wild and wooly tale of a pseudonym caper from hell. Life hasn't been kind to Abby Chandlis. She's going nowhere in her Seattle law firm; her second career as a novelist is stalled; her shiftless ex is behind in his payments, leaving her dining on cat food. But Abby has an ace in the hole: a new novel that could hit the bestseller list with the force of a pile- driver. Could hit, if only Abby weren't so unglamorous (she's pushing 40), so shopworn (those old novels turn out to be worse than no help), so unpromotable. So Abby and her roommate Theresa decide to find a front, some male model who'll masquerade as ``Gable Cooper'' for a percentage of a take that stretches higher than Jack's beanstalk. And even though the front that Abby ends up with, soldier-of-fortune/failed novelist Jack Jermaine, isn't exactly what she was looking for, the two storm through a brightly malicious pipe dream of literary celebrity, as Abby sticks like glue to her supposed client's side while big-ticket agents, publishers, and producers fight over them like so many jackals. But even before take-charge Jermaine spirits his dazzled ghostwriter off to the Caribbean for some sun and sex, clouds have gathered on the horizon. Theresa has died in a suspicious accident that seems meant for Abby; Theresa's low-life husband Joey follows apace; the Seattle police are looking for Abby; so is a scandal-sheet reporter; and finally Abby wonders whether her own legal claim to her chart-busting novel might be a lot more slender than she thought--and might be based a little too exclusively on the testimony of her late friend. Absolutely irresistible balderdash--The Pelican Brief for everybody who isn't John Grisham. (First printing of 400,000; $350,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild/Mystery Guild main selection) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Jove Publications, Inc.
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0515121495
• ISBN 13: 9780515121490
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 451