Finalist for the Nero Award!
"He's one of my very favorites: a novelist whose champagne-fizzy
mysteries--as winning as the madcap adventures of Carl Hiaasen, as
hilarious as Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series--tickle the brain,
heart, and funny bone in equal measure." -A.J. Finn, New York Times
bestselling author of Woman in the Window
In the next novel in David Handler's Edgar award-winning series,
Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag and his beloved basset hound, Lulu, investigate a
murder in a fabled Connecticut summer playhouse.
Hollywood ghostwriter Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag has chronicled the rise,
fall, and triumphant return of many a celebrity. At last he's enjoying
his own, very welcome second act. After hitting a creative slump
following the success of his debut novel, Hoagy has found inspiration
again. Ensconced with his faithful but cowardly basset hound, Lulu, on a
Connecticut farm belonging to his ex-wife, Oscar-winning actress Merilee
Nash, he's busy working on a new novel. He's even holding out hope that
he and Merilee might get together again. Life is simple and
fulfilling--which of course means it's time for complications to set
in....
When the police call to ask if he knows the whereabouts of a man named
R.J. Romero, Hoagy learns of a dark secret from his ex-wife's past. It's
already a stressful time for Merilee, who's directing a gala benefit
production of Private Lives to rescue the famed but dilapidated
Sherbourne Playhouse, where the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Marlon
Brando and Merilee herself made their professional stage debuts. Her
reputation, as well as the playhouse's future, is at stake. The cast
features three of Merilee's equally famous Oscar-winning classmates from
the Yale School of Drama. But it turns out that there's more linking
them to each other--and to their fellow Yale alum, R.J.--than their alma
mater. When one of the cast is found murdered, it will take Hoagy's
sleuthing skills and Lulu's infallible nose to sniff out the
truth...before someone else faces the final curtain call.
