Customer Reviews

The Dream Lover

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This is definitely the best Lawrence Sanders I've ever read. Late 1920's Hollywood is a totally refreshing setting for a novel. Those of us who appreciate Sanders's writing style and great dialogue are treated once again. Anyone who has not read Sanders before will not be disappointed in this choice.

This tale of a Hollywood film producer in the 1920s is one of Sanders's slightest novels, lacking the complex plotting and rich characterizations found in his later works. This was a paperback original, originally published several years before Sanders became popular with hard-hitting detective fiction such as "The First Deadly Sin" and "The Anderson Tapes." The story is enjoyable but never compelling. Both fans of the frothy McNally books and Sanders's darker works such as the "Sins" books will most likely be disappointed. True Sanders fans won't want to pass this up, but don't expect too much.

The time is Hollywood, just prior to the arrival of the talkies, when screen heroes and heroines are almost god like creatures to the ordinary audience. Eli Hebron is a talented movie maker who is fighting against the introduction of sound, claiming that it will destroy the purity and integrity of his work. Charlie Royce, a ruthless realist, is determined to take over Magna pictures, Eli's creation, for himself and sees that the majority of people want to be entertained and couldn't give a hoot about Eli's fine dreams. Charlie schemes to introduce Eli to Gladys, a sensuous, beautiful girl, in order to control him through sex and to ultimately bring about his downfall through scandal and blackmail. It's a fascinating look at the very early days of movie making and of the quite scandalous goings on behind the cameras.