Murder At Heartbreak Hospital - Hardcover

Slesar SLESAR, Henry; Slesar, Henry

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0897334639 ISBN 13: 9780897334631

Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers, 1998

Synopsis

Heartbreak Hospital is one of the most popular TV soap operas, an endless saga of life and death, love and hatred: to many of its fans, the characters seem much more real than the actors who play them. The character everyone loves to hate is Andrea Harmon, the soap's classic Bitch, played by Sunday Tyler—a ruthless, demanding, manipulative actress who has alienated everyone connected with the show. The only person who has seen Sunday's softer side is Bill Troy of the New York Police Department Movie/TV Unit, who is inevitably drawn into the case when Sunday is murdered, and no one has a satisfactory alibi.

About this title

About the Author

Henry Slesar wrote more than 500 short stories and novels and probably holds the record for having written more scripts for national television than any other writer. He has also written a number of mystery novels and collections of mystery stories. Henry Slesar died in April, 2002.

From Kirkus Reviews

This first US publication for a novel Slesar (The Thing at the Door, 1974, etc.) originally published in Europe in 1990 finds the veteran storyteller, whose TV credits go back to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, plotting murder in the world he used to w ork in, the hothouse universe of the soap opera. Bill Troy, the NYPD detective whose first assignment on the department's Movie/TV Unit is to troubleshoot some location work for the venerable Heartbreak Hospital, soon finds himself falling for imperious S unday Tyler, who plays the program's resident bitch. But Sunday's gotten so good at living into her character that everybody else around her is impervious to the charms Troy can't resist. Heartbreak Hospital's star, Milo Derringer, who normally regards hi s marriage to Sunday as merely inconvenient, is more than piqued when she threatens to kill off his character; head writer Bob Neffer trembles before her power to get him canned; executive producer Abel McAfee squirms under her blackmail threats. It's arc hly amusing to watch the cast and crew mimic the show's shenanigans, but once Sunday (surprise!) gets killed, the sequel is more of the same, right down to the daytime drama Troy finds himself in when his ex-live-in turns up on his doorstep to demand marr iage in the name of the baby she's carrying. Even the final twists are faithful to Heartbreak Hospital's sudsy formula, sharpening the novel's appeal to soap-opera fans while inviting everybody else to the egress. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Assoc iates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Academy Chicago Publishers
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0897334639
• ISBN 13: 9780897334631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248