When movie mogul Alexander Singer turns up dead, the killer is apparently one of his own children--one of a brood of six offspring from various marriages who dabble in incest, blackmail, and arson. By the author of The Left-Handed Policeman.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Mystery author (the Left-handed Policeman series) and son of the late Hollywood columnist Sheila Graham, Westbrook here limns the film industry's "big technicolor people" and presents the Singers, a dysfunctional family from central casting. Six siblings share one father, several mothers and each other; sex is graphic and frequent. Movie mogul Singer pere dies after being bashed by a blunt instrument--"offed by his Oscar"--and burned to death. Prime suspects include his kids: Rags, who's gay and stricken with AIDS; Carl, a Utopian socialist; Dave, CEO of Everest Pictures; Opera, a teenage sitcom star; Zoe, who is in self-imposed exile in Tibet; and narrator Jonathan, a black-sheep piano player in Petaluma. A gay butler, a sadistic maid and a priapic, swashbuckling star living next door fill out this tawdry intrigue of incest, patricide, blackmail and arson. In breezy narrative style, Westbrook tracks his fairly flat characters through their '60s pasts and down Rodeo Drive to a cataclysmic conflagration in the hills of Coldwater Canyon, as the house of Singer collapses. A lively, no-holds-barred mystery laced with sordid sensationalism, gossip headlines and lurid tabloid features.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
This big miniseries of a book begins with the bludgeoning of a big-time tyrant Hollywood producer with his own Oscar (Best Picture, 1972). Narrated by his estranged son (one of five kids sired by his monster father with as many wives) who returns to solve the murder, since he's being framed for it, the book never makes up its mind whether it's a mystery or a memoir of growing up rich and weird in Hollywood. Author Westbrook, who also writes series mysteries, is the son of the late Sheila Graham and a self-described Hollywood brat, so the authenticity includes much L.A.-isms, like the movie star who uses his fireplace in the summer but turns up the air conditioning to counteract the added heat. The novel starts stodgily and cliched but gets better as it goes along, with an enjoyably light tone throughout, surprising since the subject matter includes arson, murder, incest, blackmail, patricide, AIDS, and some generally interesting sex. All in all, it's a pretty busy family, like The Brady Bunch as drawn by Gahan Wilson.
- David Bartholomew, NYPL
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- David Bartholomew, NYPL
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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