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Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Winston Groom (Author)
1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)


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Book Description

February 22, 1999
Delia Jamison is a gorgeous woman of a certain age and at the pinnacle of her career as anchor of a network news show in Los Angeles. But she is being blackmailed by someone she is certain is one of her former lovers. Terrified to go to the police for fear the story will leak and cause a scandal, Delia's at her wit's end when she accidentally runs into none other than one of those former lovers, Johnny Lightfoot, whom she hasn't seen in nearly twenty years. Johnny is now an Academy Award-winning screenwriter living in New York and L.A. who feels the old emotional attraction for Delia rising again. Even though she's recently married, Delia mysteriously seems to encourage Johnny's interest.
      
Since she won't go to the police, Johnny agrees to help her find the culprit, which means she has to produce a list of the suspects. And what a list it is: moguls on the New York Stock Exchange, fancy lawyers, a stellar Ivy League professor--even a United States senator. As Johnny's investigation delves deeper into Delia's past, it exposes more than he ever wanted to know; meanwhile, the blackmailer rachets up his dangerous game. As the story moves to its frightening climax, Johnny Lightfoot finds himself entangled in a web of deceit and savage sexual violence that makes him wonder if he ever really knew Delia at all.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Apparently satiated with the gentle, homespun charms of Forrest Gump, Winston Groom enters the decidedly more menacing realm of blackmail, revenge, and torture in Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl. Readers expecting guileless and unequivocal protagonists may find themselves shocked by Groom's purview; readers looking for stylish suspense, enigmatic players, and voice-over commentary like "No trap is as deadly as the one you set for yourself" may find themselves unable to put the book down.

The girl is Los Angeles TV news anchor Delia Jamison, a still ravishing fortysomething who has strenuously and repeatedly exercised her right to leave suitors bitterly heartbroken. Oblique, seductive, and often blunt to a fault, it seems that she has begun receiving lewd and vaguely threatening letters from--she postulates--a jilted ex. Enter another former beau, Oscar-winning screenwriter Johnny Lightfoot, who fortuitously bumps into her and is captivated all over again--not only by her beauty, but also by the mystery of her tormentor. When she presents Johnny with a list of suspects (i.e., past conquests), he resolves to unmask the letter writer.

Audacious almost to the breaking point, Such a Pretty, Pretty Girl is nonetheless good fun--literary candy rife with cat-and-mouse interrogations, neon clues, and campy misdirection. Though the story becomes increasingly implausible, it also starts to mirror its vacuous heroine: as the men who are ineluctably captive to Delia's beauty know, it's nearly impossible to look away. --Ben Guterson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Groom (Forrest Gump) seems to have followed his best-known creation to Hollywood: if for Forrest "life is like a box of chocolates," for the protagonists here, life is like an old-fashioned detective thriller, replete with stock characters, stagey settings and convenient plot twists. "Drop-dead gorgeous" Delia Jamison is an L.A. television news anchor who has loved, and left, an astonishing array of men. When Delia starts to get threatening sexual letters and calls, she enlists the help of a sympathetic (and still-smitten) ex, Groom's narrator, screenwriter Johnny Lightfoot, who plunges into the investigation with amateurish enthusiasm and remarkable self-delusion. Delia is duplicitous and manipulative; she withholds key information from Johnny, from her husband Brad and from Brad's best friend, Rick, who owns "a big detective agency," yet welcomes Johnny's sleuthing (here, as elsewhere, Groom's desire to pay homage to 1940s Hollywood trumps probability and psychology). Groom invests Johnny's narration with Chandlerian cliches: "One thing was for sure, though?Delia was a woman of impenetrable contradictions." Seemingly everybody Johnny meets or knows reminds him of an actor in an old film (one fellow once "resembled a young Charlton Heston, but now he looked more like Sydney Greenstreet in Casablanca"), which comes off not as a tribute but as lazy characterization. Johnny eats good food, drinks fine wine, smokes premium cigars and plods gamely along until he stumbles across the solution to Delia's troubles, long after most readers will have figured it out. Groom winds up with a goofily violent climax, but this final action is hardly worth the price Johnny, and readers, have paid to get there. Ad/promo; BOMC and QPB selections; author tour.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Audio Cassette
  • Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (February 22, 1999)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0375405887
  • ISBN-13: 978-0375405884
  • Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.5 x 1.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 3.7 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,472,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
1.9 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Too Many Factual Errors Plus An Annoying Ending, July 12, 2000
This book contains some simple factual errors that make one doubt the concentration of both author and editor. For example, on page 131 the arithmetic is all wrong. The original payment to the service was $180 per hour and Delia got $60 of that. The subsequent direct payments to Delia's post office box were $50 per hour, which is certainly not 3 times $60 as stated. Seems she actually gave herself a cut in pay, which might also be appropriate for the author/editor. The suspense of waiting until the end of the book for revelation of 'what Delia did' kept me interested through some rather repetitious and boring episodes. However - there was no revelation! The secret was never revealed to the poor sucker reading the book. I was annoyed by this at the time, and still am a day later. I can only be grateful that I got this book from the library and didn't spend any money on it.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars If I could I'd give zero stars, March 1, 2006
By 
As many have already said, this book is just plain bad. Right from the beginning it was a big bore. Not a page-turner for me. I stopped reading about a quarter of the way through. So happy I didn't pay for it (library)!!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Garbage, April 17, 2001
By A Customer
This book is not worth reading, not worth carrying home from the store, and not worth the money I paid. How could anyone enjoy a book without a single likeable character.
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