Paroled for a crime she doesn't regret committing, Nina Zero is an ex-con trying to lay low in Los Angeles, a city where not being famous is worse than being dead. She isn't looking for a fight or, for that matter, a friend. But in Burning Garbo -- Robert Eversz's knockout follow-up to Shooting Elvis -- she's shot at, knifed, burned out, and beat up during her high-octane race to solve a high-profile murder.
On the morning of her thirtieth birthday, Zero scales the Malibu hillside above the estate of a reclusive film star who hasn't been seen in a decade. As a paparazza for the tabloid rag Scandal Times, she needs the work to pay the rent and feed her gas-guzzling 1972 Cadillac Eldorado. What she doesn't need is the aggravation. Within the next few hours, a man she takes for a bodyguard tries to kill her, she flees a brushfire that torches the star's estate, and an arson investigator decides to prove she set the fire to photograph the results.
Just when everyone seems out to get her, a toothless Rottweiler adopts her as his new best friend. Accompanied by the Rott, Zero goes on the hunt, compelled to prove that someone else set the fire before the cops jail her for the crimes of arson and -- when charred bones are discovered in the ashes of the star's estate -- murder. The killers are equally interested in finding her, and their desperation escalates to a bone-chilling series of violent encounters, in which Nina plays hunter one moment and prey the next. Amid the mayhem, she finds supporters -- a diminutive heiress, a tough-love parole officer, a tabloid news reporter, and a retired sheriff deputy -- who help her discover the truth not just about the crime, but also about herself.
Fans of classic noir will love this stylish thriller and its vibrant, believable antiheroine, an original in a genre of imitators.
