The List
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4.0 • 44 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A bold and successful scheme to outwit the biggest players in publishing and film animates this novel by the bestselling author of The Judge--a suspenseful thriller in which the price of fame becomes terror.Gable Cooper has penned a novel to kill for. Six million dollars in book and film rights are looming just off the table for this unknown author. But there is a problem: Gable Cooper doesn't exist.Abby Chandlis is an attorney turned novelist and the creator of Gable Cooper. In an age when glamour, not grammar, is often the secret to selling books, Abby has an intriguing plan to keep her writing career alive: find a charismatic male face to pose as the phantom author for the knock-dead thriller she has written.Jack Jermaine is a man with dangerous good looks and a shadowy past. Trained by the military to kill, his obsession is to pen a blockbuster book. He has a trunk filled with rejected manuscripts and a gnawing problem that has turned him bitter: Jack can't write.Desperate to find a man to play the role of Gable Cooper, Abby is about to give up when Jack forces his way into her life. Reluctantly she is convinced that Jack's humor and looks will clinch success for her novel. She uses her legal wits and makes a deal with the devil. Jack becomes Gable Cooper.When Jack is propelled into the orbit of celebrity, Abby finds herself at once seduced and trapped by her own creation. Success turns to terror. The story careens from the Pacific Northwest to New York City and finally through the islands of the Caribbean as Abby races for her life to the one person she can trust--the one person who can prove to the world that she wrote the novel, and put an end to the nightmare that was once her dream, the dream of making The List.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The title refers to the New York Times bestseller list, which 40-ish Seattle lawyer and literary novelist Abby Chandlis hopes to climb with her own to-die-for commercial novel. Abby's experience with three previous novels that "died on the shelves," however, has made her distrust publishers. She believes that her new book will get the recognition and money it deserves only if it's associated with a devastatingly handsome male face. So she's marketing it under the pseudonym of "Gable Cooper" and winds up striking a deal with Jack Jermaine, the shadowy elder son of a South Carolina military family, to pose as the hunky writer. Abby quickly finds that this kind of barely legal deceit has nasty side effects. Her home is trashed and her best friend, Theresa, is electrocuted by a rigged fuse box. Theresa's ex, a violent drunk, turns up underwater, while Abby's own ex, a weasely lawyer, comes sniffing, lured by the scent of Abby's money. Jermaine's handsome, "dangerous" looks and demeanor, meanwhile, drive up the price of the book and its sequel into the mid-six figures. In the heat of success, Abby and Jack's business arrangement turns to romance, but there are facts Abby doesn't know about her new partnership that could get her killed. Martini (The Judge) clearly had a good time writing this fanciful book, in which he manages to incorporate multiple settings, invent gossamer disguises for important publishing personalities and skewer the machinery that produces blockbuster books. The fiery finish and final revelations put Martini's new novel squarely in the commercial territory tracked by "the list"-never mind the ironies of the book being a likely blockbuster in its own right. 400,000 first printing; $350,000 ad/promo; Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club and Mystery Guild main selections.
Customer Reviews
Curve Ball
This is a very good read with a curve ball ending that rates among the best.