Suspense

Stanley Hastings, bodyguard? Come on, he doesn't even carry a gun. But a best-selling suspense writer's wife who is getting threatening phone calls hires Stanley to make them stop. Bad move. The fact the calls continue is the least of her worries.

"Hall's deadpan style of satire makes mincemeat out of the pretentious author and his entourage of cynical agents, editors, and publicists, each of whom keeps telling Stanley (in hilariously abusive dialogue) what a lousy novel his case would make. Rising above their contempt, the sad-sack detective plods along after his clients, dodging razors and bombs, and picking up enough hot dish on the publishing trade to write a very funny book of his own."
-Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review 

"First-class fun from start to finish."
-Booklist

"When it comes to humor, Parnell Hall continues to help set the standard."
-San Jose Mercury News

"Amusing, tongue in cheek ...The milieu with all its vagaries proves a ready target for Hall's well-aimed barbs as he offers a delightfully accurate account of a bookstore signing.... Hall proves as adept at creating on-page suspense as he is at lampooning it."
-Publishers Weekly 

"Hall tells a good tale, creates a cast of colorful, slightly eccentric characters, and gives them some of the best dialogue in the genre."
-Kirkus 

"Hall has a slyly delightful time skewering the publishing field and best sellers.... Hall probably had as much fun injecting little mystery traditions as the reader will have discovering them."
-Oline H. Cogdill, Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel