Washed-up celebrity novelist turned ghostwriter Stewart ?Hoagy? Hoag is finally making progress on his long-awaited second novel. Burrowed away in his sweltering fifth-floor walk-up, he's also trying not to think about the fine summer that he and his ex-wife, celebrity actress Merilee Nash, have just spent together on her bucolic Connecticut farm. Sort of together, that is. She was generous enough to offer him the use of her guest cottage. But now Merilee is offering to let him stay in her elegant eight-room apartment overlooking Central Park while she's away shooting a film on location. This is a major step. Could it mean that their on-again, off-again romance is back on for real?

Then Hoagy receives a call from his literary agent asking if he can meet with publishing's most ruthless and reviled editor, Sylvia James, for a drink at the Algonquin Hotel. After disclosing that her father, the aging literary superstar Addison James, has not in fact written his last two bestselling historical sagas, Sylvia reveals her suspicions that Addison's assistant Tommy O'Brien?the true author?has run away with their most recent manuscript and is holding it for ransom. Swayed by his friendship with Tommy, not to mention Sylvia's offer of a hefty advance for his novel-in-progress, Hoagy agrees to help investigate Tommy's sudden disappearance. If only Hoagy had known exactly what he was getting himself into, he might have saved himself from the grief that follows in his hot pursuit of Tommy. But then, that wouldn't be a normal day in the life of Hoagy.

David Handler has written eleven novels about the witty and dapper celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag and his faithful, neurotic basset hound, Lulu, including the Edgar- and American Mystery Award-winning The Man Who Would Be F. Scott Fitzgerald. His other series include the Berger/Mitry franchise and two novels featuring private eye Benji Golden. David was a member of the original writing staff that created the Emmy Award-winning sitcom Kate and Allie, and has continued to write extensively for television and films on both coasts. He lives in a 200-year-old carriage house in Old Lyme, Connecticut.