The girl who took what she wanted

Review by Booklist Review

The fourteenth Stewart Hoag mystery is set in the early 1990s. A few years back, Hoag had been the Next Big Thing in the literary world, until he wasn't. Now he's a ghostwriter of celebrity memoirs and, more by happenstance than choice, an amateur sleuth. When a fading TV star hires Hoag to ghostwrite a novel designed to turn the star into a literary sensation, he takes the job; it's not like he has any writing of his own to do, and, you never know, a gig in L.A. might kick-start his novelist's brain into coming up with a good idea for his own book. Of course, if he'd known in advance just how screwed up the TV star's family is, and how dangerous it can be to get close to her, he might have stayed home. Fans were thrilled when Handler returned to the Hoag novels--there was a 20-year gap between books 8 and 9--and each subsequent series installment has been delightfully entertaining. This one's no exception.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

It's 1989 in Edgar winner Handler's superior 14th Stewart Hoag mystery (after 2022's The Lady in the Silver Cloud), and Alberta Pryce, Hoag's loyal agent, has a ghost-writing job for her client, who was once considered "the first major new literary voice of the 1980s" but went into a self-destructive spiral under the pressure of trying to write a second book. Nikki Dymtryk, "a spoiled wild child" whose life as a teen is the basis for Being Nikki, a hit TV show, decides when the program plateaus to become the bestselling author of a Hollywood romance novel, despite her lack of literary talent. Tempted by a lucrative payday, Hoag travels from New York to California to meet with her, only to be threatened with death if he proceeds further. The bludgeoning murder of someone he meets follows, and Hoag must sort through a variety of suspects before arriving at the gut-punch solution to the crime. The empathetic Hoag's narrative voice compels, and Handler makes his role as an investigator easy to accept. Fans of hard-edged whodunits set in La La Land will be riveted. Agent: Dominick Abel, Dominick Abel Literary. (Feb.)

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Finally it can be told: Celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag, writing ostensibly in 1994, tells all about an abortive assignment in 1989 that left four people dead. The ratings for Being Nikki, the pioneering reality TV series featuring famous-for-being-famous Nikki Dymtryk, are tapering off, and the producers want its third season to be its last. What's up next for the beautiful 23-year-old? She's been approached to write a sexy romance that will have readers waiting for the sequel as they wonder which characters are based on real-life people like her sister, Lisa, a talented fashion designer who's devoted herself to exactly one client, her kid sister; her parents, top Hollywood attorney Jack Dymtryk and soap-opera star Pam Hamilton; Jack's brother, business manager Kenny Dymtryk, and his straightlaced wife, Enid; and the ex-spouses, lovers, and hangers-on who hover in the family's wake. Nikki, who has no intention of sitting down at a keyboard, has nixed every ghostwriter who's been pitched to her, but she takes to Hoagy and his anchovy-eating basset hound, Lulu, so quickly and wholeheartedly that you just know things are going to go badly--especially once Hoagy's ex-wife, Tony-winning actress Merilee Nash, phones him from right around the corner and expresses an urgent wish to meet. Though it's hard to imagine a more innocuous assignment, Hoagy gets a terse message, "IF YOU WRITE THIS BOOK YOU WILL DIE." As fans of this appealing franchise will know, he'll survive the coming fray in much better shape than those other members of the supporting cast Smooth, brightly written, professional-grade beach reading. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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