Synopsis
Learning that his wife and partner have died suspiciously while he was away, successful Hollywood producer Wolf Willett returns home and hires ace criminal defense lawyer Ed Eagle to clear his name of the murder charges. 75,000 first printing. $125,000 ad/promo. Tour.
Reviews
You're a rich, successful Hollywood producer who awakens the morning before Thanksgiving in your Santa Fe home with no memory of the previous night. Ignoring your dog's attempts to get you to visit the guest wing of the house, you leave and fly your private plane to Los Angeles. But you never get there: a breakdown forces you to spend the holiday isolated in a small airport town. When you finally see the newspaper the next day, you read that the bodies of your wife, your business partner and a third man--assumed to be you--have been found in the guest room of the Santa Fe residence. Further, you learn that your wife is not who you thought she was and has a most sleazy past. You don't know what's going on--or even whether you committed the murders yourself. That's the premise of Woods's ( Palindrome ) newest thriller. Wolf Willett decides to stay "dead" for a while and finish work on his new film, then hires a top defense attorney and turns himself in. Things keep moving thereafter at the same mad pace, with ever more improbable plot twists pushing the reader's suspension of disbelief to the limit--if not beyond. Willett may be the dumbest protagonist any writer will create this year. Woods is a master of this sort of thing, however, and unfolds his tale in an easy style that will keep readers engrossed and probably put his name on the bestseller lists again. 75,000 first printing; $125,000 ad/promo; Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild selections; Literary Guild alternate; author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Woods (New York Dead, 1991, etc.) may hail from Sante Fe, but he doesn't do his hometown much honor with this slack mystery/homage. Even Sante Fe's gorgeous desert setting fades against the blinding silliness of Woods's plotting here. A nifty premise sets up the story: Middle-aged film producer Wolf Willett, stranded at the Grand Canyon, opens a New York Times to read that his gorgeous young wife, Julia, his best pal, and...himself! have been shot dead at his Sante Fe home. But rather than run with that kick-off by having Wolf stay officially dead and investigate the murders incognito, Woods has his hero fly on to L.A.--and finish work on his latest movie. A week or so later, Wolf returns to Sante Fe and, anticipating legal trouble, hires legendary defense lawyer Ed Eagle--a 6'7'' tower of chutzpa who's the only character here who rises above clich‚. Under Ed's expensive guidance, Wolf manages temporarily to stave off arrest for triple-murder by the suspicious local cops, who finally figure out that the body misidentified as Wolf is really that of the sleazy ex-husband of Julia's nearly identical sister, Barbara--who shows up and begins a fling with Ed Eagle. Meanwhile, Wolf's psychiatrist is murdered. Finally arrested for the triple-slaying, Wolf is tossed into jail--and learns that Julia stole his $3.5 million savings just before she died. Fortunately, a former IRS agent retrieves Wolf's money, and, while in jail, Wolf is adopted by a biker named Spider, who, impressed that Wolf once shook hands with Madonna, offers help that proves invaluable after someone puts out a contract on Wolf--someone who looks a lot like Barbara/Julia.... All this cockeyed mayhem sorts out in the end, of course, as Woods winds up with this happy sentence starring Wolf's pet pooch: ``Flaps lifted her head and grinned at everybody''--a fitting conclusion to this shaggy-dog story of a novel, a shockingly poor showing from an author who's sometimes (e.g., Chiefs; Under the Lake) terrific. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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