Digging James Dean: A Nina Zero Novel [Paperback]

Robert Eversz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2006

A death in the family reunites ex-con turned paparazza Nina Zero with her long-lost sister, who now touts herself as a successful real estate agent from Seattle. Who cares if the sister looks like she's lived a life as battered and fake as the designer-brand luggage she totes? With an abusive father and sweet but distant mother, Nina has been estranged from her family for so long she's happy to have a relative she can talk to.

And Nina is too busy to question her sister's tale, because an altercation with a has-been Hollywood action hero leaves her with a concussion, two broken cameras, and a hot lead in the grandmother of all tabloid stories- -- the mysterious thefts of celebrity bones from graveyards around the country.Are the bone robbers kids playing games with the devil? Cult scientists intent on cloning dead movie stars? Or members of the Church of Divine Thespians, a shadowy Hollywood sect that may be plotting some unholy ritual? In the world of tabloid reporting, the impossible is not only possible, it's required.

Not being famous is worse than being dead in Hollywood, where the bones of dead celebrities are literally worth killing for. Murder follows an unexpected betrayal, and Nina's quest for the grave robbers twists from the tabloid assignment to a grief-stricken vendetta that matches her camera against their guns, shot for shot.

With her sidekick Frank -- a slovenly assassin of celebrity reputations -- and her beloved toothless Rottweiler in tow, Nina returns to the page in an emotionally riveting tabloid thriller fit to please her own cultish following.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"You're a sucker for lost creatures, aren't you?" a colleague remarks to L.A. tabloid photographer Nina Zero, as she tries to steer a young runaway and actress-wannabe clear of trouble, in Robert Eversz's Digging James Dean. What begins as an act of charity, though--a chance for the tough-hided and perspicacious, but lonely ex-con paparazza to aid another female at loose ends in the world--soon lands Nina in the quirky company of space-alien worshippers, fugitive teenage cultists, and grave robbers intent on plundering the mortal remains of immortal Hollywood icons.

Our heroine (last seen in Burning Garbo) doesn't really have time to worry about 15-year-old Theresa, a celebrity-obsessed Midwesterner whose lukewarm tip about a has-been screen hunk results in Nina being roughed up, her cameras trashed; she already has her own problems. The prominently pierced photog is being evicted from her Venice Beach apartment; her long-abused mother has just perished from a stroke; and her elder sister, whom she hasn't seen in 24 years, has barely reappeared in her life, before she rips Nina off for $19,000--and is beaten to death during a raid on the crypt of silent-movie legend Rudolph Valentino. That last crime seems ideal fare for Scandal Times, the sensationalistic journal from which Nina draws her paychecks--especially since it follows an assault on the Indiana grave of actor James Dean, who died in a 1955 highway accident. But as Nina struggles to exorcise her grief and anger through decisive action, by exposing Hollywood's enigmatic Church of Divine Thespians, executing a Rockford-style desert car rescue, and fleeing a blaze meant to send her to her own last reward, she unearths a tale so outlandish as to amaze even jaded Scandal Times readers. And the fatally naïve Theresa sits at the center of it all.

Eversz hit a pell-mell storytelling pace with Burning Garbo, which he maintains in this clever sequel. He capitalizes nicely on the lore and landmarks of Los Angeles, and over the course of four hip mysteries (beginning with 1996's Shooting Elvis) has developed a punk protagonist intrepid enough to draw reader attention, and compassionate enough to hold onto it. Though the mastermind behind Digging James Dean's bloodshed boasts all the subtlety of a Bela Lugosi villain, Nina Zero's relentless pursuit of her sibling's slayer makes this wild ride worthwhile. It may even owe a debt to Dean himself, who said, "Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." --J. Kingston Pierce --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In Eversz's fast-moving fourth novel (after 2003's Burning Garbo) to feature ex-con Mary Alice Baker—now calling herself Nina Zero, a Hollywood tabloid photographer for the Scandal Times—a tip sends Nina and her boss on a trip to Fairmount, Ind., where thieves have broken into James Dean's grave and stolen some of his bones. A coincidence ties that theft to a rough-living teenager in Hollywood, and soon Nina is involved with a peculiar cult called the Church of Divine Thespians. Nina's family comes in for strong play as she gets reacquainted with the older sister she hasn't seen since she was six. Eversz spins a bizarre story of a cult trading in relics from old movie stars and promises of creating new ones to naïve youths who aspire to stardom. It's the stuff of tabloids teased just enough to sustain a shred of credibility and given a deadly edge by those trafficking in Hollywood dreams. Eversz's unresolved ending may frustrate some readers, but Nina Zero is a character well worth meeting again.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 2, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743250168
• ISBN-13: 978-0743250160
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #11,010,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sucker for lost creatures, December 6, 2005

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Digging James Dean: A Nina Zero Novel (Hardcover)

I had my doubts about this excellent series (of which this is the fourth installment) because I wasn't sure the author could keep it up. Too many branded series ("A Nina Zero Novel") begin to degenerate into dull routine after the first couple of volumes. But I have to applaud Eversz for maintaining a high narrative standard. For that matter, it's not uncommon for a female author to successfully write from the viewpoint of a male protagonist, but the vice is seldom versa. Nina Zero -- who used to be Mary Alice Baker -- is an exception, though. On parole for a justified manslaughter, working as a paparazza for an L.A. tabloid, she's a fascinating and generally believable character. This time, her mother has died of a heart attack, though Nina wonders if it wasn't caused indirectly by her abusive father, against whom Nina stills carries enormous rage. At the funeral home, she meets her sister, who ran away from home at sixteen and whom she hasn't seen in more than twenty years. But her sister also has secrets. All this personal history, which makes Nina the often violent person she is, is woven through a somewhat bizarre plot involving celebrity grave-robbing, black magic, and a secret society that (maybe) controls Hollywood. The immediate plot points are resolved, more or less, but Eversz leaves most of those larger questions unanswered -- or maybe he's saving them up for the next book. (I'd also like to know where Nina's going to live, now that her savings and her apartment are both gone and she has to have a permanent address to stay out on parole.) The author, as always, does a first-rate job with his characters, especially Frank the tabloid reporter and Theresa, the starlet-wannabe. And he doesn't let a happy ending survive contact with reality, as when Theresa is arrested. This is definitely a series I shall continue to follow.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I kicked him in the source of so much trouble in the world. . ., May 28, 2006

By 

Snowbrocade (Santa Barbara, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Digging James Dean: A Nina Zero Novel (Hardcover)

This is the fourth installment in the "Nina Zero" noir-punk series by Eversz. Eversz continues to produce a well-written thriller about Hollywood low-lifes and bottom feeders. In "Digging James Dean" our protagonist comes up against a ghoulish cult of desperate wanna-be actors.

Nina, who in the prior books was a violent anti-social loser, suffers major loss in this novel and somehow comes across as much milder and more in the role of rescuer. Also Nina reunites with her sister who is a con artist and much more anti-social than Nina.

Definitely fun and worth reading if a little less intense than prior novels.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A five star look at Hollywood, December 5, 2004

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Digging James Dean: A Nina Zero Novel (Hardcover)

Hollywood paparazzi Nina Zero works for the tabloid Scandal Times fittingly out of a former sewage works warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. Her boss Frank informs Nina that the two of them are flying to Chicago and from there driving to a cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana where someone stole the remains of Rebel Without a Cause actor James Dean. Frank tells Nina that her parole officer gave the okay for her and her Frank to go on the assignment.

In Indiana, Nina and Frank wonder who would steal the bones of Dean and why. Could the culprits be kids on a lark, the Raelians who believe ET scientists planted humanity on earth and desire a cloning of Mr. Dean, or a the Church of the Divine Thespians, whom she "met" in Hollywood through a tip from a rough living sixteen year old recent Hoosier transplant. Anyway you look at it; Nina plans to rattle a bone or two even as the skeletons from her own past such as Mary Alice Baker (her family name) surface to shake her complacency.

The latest Nina Zero Hollywood (and in this case Indiana) tale is a wild journalistic investigative tale that is all over the place, but ultimately returns to classic American economics of supply and demand (everything has a price and is for sale). A subplot involving Mary Alice's sister whom she has not seen in decades adds knowledge to what readers know about the ex-con. Though the ending may put some readers off the series (this reviewer thought it apropos), Robert Eversz third tale may be a Zero, but is also a five star look at Hollywood.

Harriet Klausner