The Girl Who Took What She Wanted: Stewart Hoag Mysteries (Stewart Hoag Mysteries)
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- 8,49 €
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- 8,49 €
Publisher Description
In this new installment of the Edgar award-winning Stewart Hoag mystery series, the ghostwriting sleuth investigates a trail of murder amidst Hollywood’s rich and famous.
Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag hasn’t written any fiction since his debut novel rocked the literary world of the 1980s and then left him with a paralyzing case of writer’s block. Since then, he’s been reduced to ghostwriting celebrity memoirs. But his newest project could have him diving back into the world of fiction in a way he never imagined.
Nikki Dymtryk is Hollywood’s hottest reality TV star, known for her wild party lifestyle and prolific sexual conquests across the music, film, and sports industries. But when the ratings for her show Being Nikki begin to drop, the Dymtryk family engineers a new plan to keep Nikki in the limelight: reinventing the young star as a bestselling author. Nikki’s team hires Hoagy to ghostwrite a steamy romance novel showcasing the glitz and glamor of the Hollywood elite.
Reluctantly, Hoagy flies out to L.A. with his trusty basset hound Lulu to see what he’s gotten himself into with Nikki. But when he finally meets the starlet, she’s nothing like the aimless, airhead image she presents to the media. This project may just be the key to getting Hoagy’s creative juices flowing again—and staying in L.A. might also give him a chance at getting back together with his actress ex-wife, Merilee. But spending time with Nikki isn’t all parties and poolside lounging. As Hoagy gets closer to the young woman, he begins to uncover the Dymtryk family’s dark secrets. Secrets that are worth killing for.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
