Like every other character in this witty spoof, Roy Milano, a New York film buff who airs his arcane knowledge via a self-published newsletter called Trivial Man, is a beloved movie cliche. Cast as the Hitchcockian hero who embarks on a quest for knowledge and becomes a pawn in a deadly game of intrigue, Roy plays his role with disarming guilelessness … Although the plot eventually implodes from its pileup of improbabilities, the farcical spirit of the adventure makes it worth its weight in popcorn. Marilyn Stasio
Like the hero in a classic Hitchcock thriller, the innocent movie buff at the center of this witty and suspenseful novel finds his ordinary life suddenly transformed when he's plunged into a harrowing game of intrigue, duplicity, and danger. Spurred into a frantic race from New York to Hollywood to Barcelona and back, he'll encounter enough hairpin twists, shocking surprises, white-knuckle tension, and sinister characters to give even the master of suspense himself a serious case of vertigo. But in "this scenario, the mayhem and murder are all too real.
Self-proclaimed movie geek and divorced thirty-something Roy Milano lives alone in a cramped Manhattan apartment, toiling as a freelancer to make ends meet. It is a life perfectly suited to the creator of Trivial Man, Roy's self-published newsletter-filled with tidbits of little-known Tinseltown lore for the delight of other fringe-dwelling cinemaphiles. And it's a tantalizing phone call from one such kindred spirit that thrusts Roy headlong into his waking noir nightmare.
“I've got The Magnificent Ambersons,” declares Alan Gilbert, host of a homemade cable-TV show about the silver screen, who now claims to possess the rarest of the rare: the long-lost and never-released complete print of Orson Welles' classic follow-up to Citizen Kane. But when Roy arrives at his fellow movie maven's abode to sneak a peek at celluloid history, the front door is ominously open, Alan Gilbert is dead, and The Magnificent Ambersons is nowhere in sight. Even though the cops arrest a local drug addict for the murder, Roy knows they're wrong because the theft of the movie masterpiece points to a different kind of junkie, the kind Roy knows only too well-and the kind he is certain only he can catch.
But Roy Milano is no Sam Spade, even if he does run into more gun-toting goons, sucker punches, and double-crosses than Bogey on a busy day. And the suspects prove to be anything but usual-including a bodybuilding film fanatic obsessed with bizarre rumors about an A-list actress, a rotund reporter who holds Hollywood in thrall via red-hot Internet dispatches from his parents' basement, and a star-struck street punk with a thousand voices. And then there is the transatlantic love triangle that finds Roy caught between his very own eager Gal Friday and a sultry Spanish siren with a stunning secret. But when the bodies start to fall faster than a box-office bomb, Roy must cut to the chase in his perilous quest to save the Holy Grail of cinema-and unmask a killer-before everything fades to black.
Like the hero in a classic Hitchcock thriller, the innocent movie buff at the center of this witty and suspenseful novel finds his ordinary life suddenly transformed when he's plunged into a harrowing game of intrigue, duplicity, and danger. Spurred into a frantic race from New York to Hollywood to Barcelona and back, he'll encounter enough hairpin twists, shocking surprises, white-knuckle tension, and sinister characters to give even the master of suspense himself a serious case of vertigo. But in "this scenario, the mayhem and murder are all too real.
Self-proclaimed movie geek and divorced thirty-something Roy Milano lives alone in a cramped Manhattan apartment, toiling as a freelancer to make ends meet. It is a life perfectly suited to the creator of Trivial Man, Roy's self-published newsletter-filled with tidbits of little-known Tinseltown lore for the delight of other fringe-dwelling cinemaphiles. And it's a tantalizing phone call from one such kindred spirit that thrusts Roy headlong into his waking noir nightmare.
“I've got The Magnificent Ambersons,” declares Alan Gilbert, host of a homemade cable-TV show about the silver screen, who now claims to possess the rarest of the rare: the long-lost and never-released complete print of Orson Welles' classic follow-up to Citizen Kane. But when Roy arrives at his fellow movie maven's abode to sneak a peek at celluloid history, the front door is ominously open, Alan Gilbert is dead, and The Magnificent Ambersons is nowhere in sight. Even though the cops arrest a local drug addict for the murder, Roy knows they're wrong because the theft of the movie masterpiece points to a different kind of junkie, the kind Roy knows only too well-and the kind he is certain only he can catch.
But Roy Milano is no Sam Spade, even if he does run into more gun-toting goons, sucker punches, and double-crosses than Bogey on a busy day. And the suspects prove to be anything but usual-including a bodybuilding film fanatic obsessed with bizarre rumors about an A-list actress, a rotund reporter who holds Hollywood in thrall via red-hot Internet dispatches from his parents' basement, and a star-struck street punk with a thousand voices. And then there is the transatlantic love triangle that finds Roy caught between his very own eager Gal Friday and a sultry Spanish siren with a stunning secret. But when the bodies start to fall faster than a box-office bomb, Roy must cut to the chase in his perilous quest to save the Holy Grail of cinema-and unmask a killer-before everything fades to black.
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
BN ID: | 2940169521894 |
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Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
Publication date: | 03/01/2006 |
Edition description: | Unabridged |
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