Moon Over Manhattan: Mystery and Mayhem [Hardcover]

Larry King (Author), Thomas H. Cook (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

It's welcome to New York and watch out for the locals in this delightful new tale of love, mystery, madness and mayhem in the most most intriguing, romantic, and fast- paced setting of them all!

Bestselling authors Larry King and Thomas H. Cook have collaborated on this Valentine to New York City...this top-speed ride throught the bright lights and dim wits of the big city.

Arthur Vandameer, single dad and TV political commentary giant, the host of WNIN's Speaking Truth to Power, is rich, famous and miserable. He has risen to the top of the city's glittering media heap only to find...nothing. His teenage daughter, priveleged and glamorous Allison Vandameer is blonde, beautiful and wants nothing more than to go to film school. Her boyfriend, Joselito Diaz (aka Goonie), is special to her only because she knows her father cannot stand him.

Roy Bumble spends his time contemplating "the big score" that will make him infinitely wealthy...but returns home to Queens each day from his humdrum doorman job at the posh Sherry-Netherland to his whiny wife Bea Bumble.

Charlie Moon is the big city newspaperman, who is convinced that he has seen everything in this crazy town, until he's sent out on assignment to do a piece for the style section of The Daily Register.

Harry "Ace" Stumbo and Cheeky Putoyna round out the pack. They know all the angles in this dirty town--all the bad men and the worst women--but just don't know how to keep their fingers off them.

When the lovely Allison disappears, these colorful characters (and Mr. Peanut too) are thrown into a citywide web of intrigue, insanity, political values and personal agendas which takes them from The Plaza, to Queens, to Herald Square, to Tiffany, a few bars, a few bedrooms, Bergdorf Goodman and back culminating on live television in front of all of America.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this delightful farce-and such an animal is a rarity these days-the famed talk-show host and the veteran mystery author bite with gusto into the Big Apple; what they reveal will have readers laughing and shaking their heads in amazement. Allison Vandameer, the pretty, conniving daughter of famed and wealthy liberal TV commentator Arthur Vandameer, wants to go to film school, which Arthur doesn't want. Her solution: to fake an elopement with her brain-dead Puerto Rican boyfriend, aka Goonie, to panic Arthur and inflame his paternal love for her sufficiently to pay for film school. But when Goonie, being Goonie, mixes up the spot where he's supposed to meet Allison, the girl hatches a new plan: to disappear by hiding out at the home of Roy Bumble-a hotel doorman who hates living in Queens and who's looking for a big score-whom she meets as she's waiting for Goonie. Meanwhile, Charlie Moon, an arch-conservative veteran reporter for a city tabloid, has been ordered by his boss to write what is for Moon a humiliating article about residences with Central Park views, including Vandameer's; at Vandameer's place, Moon, who despises the liberal commentator, learns about Allison's apparent elopement and sees in it a way to destroy Vandameer. Throw in a bevy of other richly caricatured New York types, a slew of classic city locales and enough spins to make a whirling dervish dizzy, and you have classic farce. Rarely has a novel captured with such zest, mirth and affection the madcap crowd of players and wannabes, heroes and hucksters that teems within America's premiere city. The Bronx may be up and the Battery down, but in a story that moves as wildly as a speeding A train, the authors embrace both and all points in between, with a riotous tale that should have not just Gotham but all of America singing, "New York, New York, what a wonderful town!" B&w illus. not see by PW.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School--A contemporary satire with the feel of a dated screwball comedy. Mayhem is wreaked in a metropolitan setting as the narrator's urbane wit pops open a Pandora's box of psycho-melodrama. Character by conniving character, chapter after quirkily titled chapter, stereotypes emerge and gain exaggerated momentum. In part or sum, the cast is foppish, frivolous, feisty, grumpy, dopey, and flatulent. Dialogue is at the epicenter of the plot, which hinges on the elopement-turned-self-abduction of a left-wing talk-show host's debutante daughter. Lines blur between antagonists and protagonists like headlights during gridlock traffic. It's hard to decide if someone is oafish or endearing, overbearing or embraceable, but the dubiousness adds to the fun. Foul play is of the yellow flag, sporting variety. The only acts of violence come from provoked punches and uncontrollable dyspepsia, heightening the spoof effect and YA appeal. Readers will enjoy knowing "who dun it" as they follow the clueless ensemble around NYC, waiting for everyone to converge. The authors affectionately poke fun at the Big Apple and the detective genre. It's a welcome change from gritty to nutty that YAs seem to lap up in the movies and will in this case, too.--Karen Sokol, Fairfax County Public Schools, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 249 pages
• Publisher: New Millennium Press (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893224570
• ISBN-13: 978-1893224575
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,355,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Loving and Touching Tribute to the Big Apple, July 19, 2003

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moon Over Manhattan: Mystery and Mayhem (Hardcover)

Larry King? The talk show guy? Wrote a mystery? Oh yeah --- and it reads like he had a ball doing it. The main guy is hip liberal talk show host Arthur Vandermeer, who resembles Mr. King in many respects. But if the famed TV host of Larry King Live is half the hypochondriac his creation is, he'd barely be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Larry Moon, a right-wing tabloid newspaper columnist, is pulled in as a last minute replacement to interview his nemesis, Vandermeer, for a fluff piece on spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline. Moon, whose career is nosediving, was angling for a front-page byline with a big star, but this doesn't sound like what he had in mind. Then he falls into an exclusive when Vandermeer's daughter, Allison, who knows how to push her father's buttons, announces while Moon is at the house that she's going to elope with Goonie, a kid from the projects. But she ends up missing, and Vandermeer, fearing a kidnapping, is distraught.

Some other New York types enter the story in a mirthful mix-up --- a monosyllabic private eye who hates the Disneyfication of Times Square; a hotel doorman from Queens with grandiose plans to strike it rich; throw in a madam, a pint-sized madman brawler and a befuddled, idea-a-minute media magnate and you have a Manhattan cocktail of mayhem.

In a Runyonesque tribute to the spirit of the characters who inhabit the Big Apple, King states in a forward that he hopes the love, admiration and affection he and his co-writer Tom Cook have for New York and its people shine through. It most certainly does!

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars New York, New York...A Helluva Town..., May 21, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Moon Over Manhattan: Mystery and Mayhem (Hardcover)

As a born and bred New Yorker who now lives far away...my heart still belongs to my birthplace. Larry King and Tom Cook have truly written a valentine to the city I love so much. Wow! Larry King, Tom Cook and New York...three great ingredients...mix them togther and you get a fantastic read! I loved this book! After all the sturm und drang of these past few years, finally something I could laugh out loud at! It's not just light-hearted...it's really smart and timely too. And it's certainly not just for New Yorkers!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Quite Possibly the Worst Book I Have Ever Read, July 12, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Moon Over Manhattan (Paperback)

This book isn't a farce, it's just silly. It's not funny, it's insipid. The writing is poor. The characters are charicatures. The plot is non-existant. My respect for Larry King is gone.