Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
David Handler returns with the first book in the Hoagy & Lulu series in two decades, a madcap mystery about an eccentric family of influential artists, and how Hollywood's obsession with the spotlight can sometimes turn deadly full of delicious LA folklore and 90s nostalgia.
One-hit-wonder author turned ghostwriter and amateur sleuth Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag and his persnickety basset hound Lulu are back for their first appearance in twenty years .
The year is 1992. Clinton is on the road to the white house, Kurt Cobain fever has taken over America's youth, and cell phones are the size of your head. Hoagy is pulled back into the orbit of the brilliant, erratic, maddening poet Reggie Aintree, whom he was deeply in love with before he met his ex, Merilee Nash. Reggie and her sister Monette believe they've been contacted by their long-lost father from whom they ve been estranged for decades. Richard Aintree wrote one captivating novel that is read in every high school English class. But he fell off the face of the earth after his wife (the girls' mother), a distinguished American poet in her own right, committed suicide on a bad acid trip in the '70s.
To complicate matters further, Monette found her first taste of fame at twenty-years-old when she published Father Didn't Know Best, a memoir falsely accusing her father of sexual abuse. Though she tried to recant her accusations in subsequent books, the damage was done. She and her sister Reggie have not spoken since. Now, Monette is a media mogul whose empire is crumbling, and Reggie runs the Root-Chakra Institute in Upstate New York. Recently, both sisters have received mysterious typewritten letters from their father.
Into this crazy mix comes Hoagy, who is staying in the pool house at Monette's Brentwood mansion after he s been hired as a ghostwriter to document the tell-all book that could result from this mess. But when murder strikes, it s more important than ever for him to pull fact from fiction as he races to catch a clever, sinister killer.
One of my all-time favorite series. Harlan Coben
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Synopsis
HARLAN COBEN calls it -One of my all-time favorite series ...David Handler is so good at writing one smart, funny page-turner after another that he makes it look easy.-
Fans of JANET EVANOVICH and CARL HIAASEN, get ready. If you haven't yet discovered wisecracking sleuth Stewart -Hoagy- Hoag and his faithful basset hound Lulu, you're in for a sharp, hilarious treat...
Once upon a time, Hoagy had it all: a hugely successful debut novel, a gorgeous celebrity wife, the glamorous world of New York City at his feet. These days, he scrapes by as a celebrity ghostwriter. A celebrity ghostwriter who finds himself investigating murders more often than he'd like.
And once upon a time, Richard Aintree was the most famous writer in America -- high school students across the country read his one and only novel, a modern classic on par with The Catcher in the Rye. But after his wife's death, Richard went into mourning... and then into hiding. No one has heard from him in twenty years.
Until now. Richard Aintree -- or someone pretending to be Richard Aintree -- has at last reached out to his two estranged daughters. Monette is a Martha Stewart-style lifestyle queen whose empire is crumbling; and once upon a time, Reggie was the love of Hoagy's life. Both sisters have received mysterious typewritten letters from their father.
Hoagy is already on the case, having been hired to ghostwrite a tell-all book about the troubled Aintree family. But no sooner does he set up shop in the pool house of Monette's Los Angeles mansion than murder strikes. With Lulu at his side -- or more often cowering in his shadow -- it's up to Hoagy to unravel the mystery, catch the killer, and pour himself that perfect single-malt Scotch... before it's too late.