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Handler, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 072786811X ISBN 13: 9780727868114

Publisher: Severn House, 2009

Synopsis

An electrifying thriller from an Edgar Award-winning crime writer - A dying TV star reaches out to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist with an explosive revelation: the truth behind an infamous Hollywood murder spree, which will destroy a US senators bid for the presidency. For former star reporter Hunt Liebling, its a chance to get his career back on track until he walks in on an all-new Hollywood massacre, and becomes the prime suspect himself . . .

About this title

About the Author

David Handler was born and raised in Los Angeles and published two highly acclaimed novels about growing up there, Kiddo and Boss, before resorting to a life of crime fiction. He has written eight novels featuring the witty and dapper celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag, including the Edgar-Award-winning The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald. He has also written five novels featuring the beloved duo of pudgy New York film critic Mitch Berger and alluring Connecticut State Trooper Des Mitry, including the Dilys Award-nominated The Cold Blue Blood. He has written extensively for television and films on both coasts and co-authored the international best-selling thriller Gideon under the pseudonym Russell Andrews. He is a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and began his career in New York City as a television and theater critic. He also served a stint as a ghostwriter. Mr. Handler currently lives in a 1790s carriage house in Old Lyme, Connecticut.

Reviews

At the start of this unconvincing near-future thriller from Edgar-winner Handler (The Sour Cherry Surprise), Tim Ferris, a former child actor on The Big Happy Family, America's top-rated TV show from 1954 to 1968, sends Ernest Ludington Thayer, the world's oldest living Pulitzer Prize winner, a letter offering the truth behind the 1972 murder spree that killed six of the show's other cast members. One of Ferris's co-stars on the Brady Bunch–like show was Gary Dixon, now a U.S. senator and Christian conservative running for president. Dixon leads his Democratic opponent by a wide margin in the polls. Since age has left Thayer too infirm to leave his New York City home and follow up himself, he dispatches Hunt Liebling, a courageous independent blogger, to California to learn what Ferris knows. Liebling's mission soon turns violent after the corrupt creator of The Big Happy Family sends in hired muscle to stop Ferris from talking. Major plot holes don't help a hard-to-swallow premise. (Dec.)
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The adventure begins when journalist Hunt Liebling gets a call from his former teacher, Ernest Thayer, who has received a bizarre letter from aging child star Tim Ferris. The actor claims to know the “real truth” behind one of Hollywood’s most infamous murder sprees, which resulted in the deaths of nearly the entire cast of beloved family sitcom The Big Happy Family in 1972. But the most titillating claim in Ferris’ letter is that Herbert Landau, the show’s producer, and one of the show’s child stars, Gary Dixon, who is now on the verge of being elected the president of the U.S., were responsible for the murders. Thayer commissions Liebling to fly to L.A. and get the scoop. What he finds is an eye-popping mix of sex, pornography, religion, cover-ups, scams, scandals, and murder jostling for position with ruthless politics and a megalomaniacal plan to take over the country. Fast paced, frantic, and head spinning, Handler’s latest is no ordinary thriller: it’s distinctly odd and wildly over the top, but it’s also tautly constructed and thoroughly involving, boasting equal doses of Hollywood glamour and show-biz craziness. --Emily Melton

Edition details

• Publisher: Severn House
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 072786811X
• ISBN 13: 9780727868114
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256