SummaryLike 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 thirtysomething Roy Milano lives
alone in a cramped Manhattan apartment, toiling as a
freelancer to make ends meet. It?s 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?s 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?s 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 starstruck street punk with a
thousand voices. And then there?s 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.
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