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Finalist for the Nero Award

"He's one of my very favorites: a novelist whose champagne-fizzy mysteries--as winning as the madcap adventures of Carl Hiaasen, as hilarious as Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series--tickle the brain, heart, and funny bone in equal measure." -A.J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of Woman in the Window

In the next novel in David Handler's Edgar award-winning series, Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag and his beloved basset hound, Lulu, investigate a murder in a fabled Connecticut summer playhouse.

Hollywood ghostwriter Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag has chronicled the rise, fall, and triumphant return of many a celebrity. At last he's enjoying his own, very welcome second act. After hitting a creative slump following the success of his debut novel, Hoagy has found inspiration again. Ensconced with his faithful but cowardly basset hound, Lulu, on a Connecticut farm belonging to his ex-wife, Oscar-winning actress Merilee Nash, he's busy working on a new novel. He's even holding out hope that he and Merilee might get together again. Life is simple and fulfilling--which of course means it's time for complications to set in....

When the police call to ask if he knows the whereabouts of a man named R.J. Romero, Hoagy learns of a dark secret from his ex-wife's past. It's already a stressful time for Merilee, who's directing a gala benefit production of Private Lives to rescue the famed but dilapidated Sherbourne Playhouse, where the likes of Katherine Hepburn, Marlon Brando and Merilee herself made their professional stage debuts. Her reputation, as well as the playhouse's future, is at stake. The cast features three of Merilee's equally famous Oscar-winning classmates from the Yale School of Drama. But it turns out that there's more linking them to each other--and to their fellow Yale alum, R.J.--than their alma mater. When one of the cast is found murdered, it will take Hoagy's sleuthing skills and Lulu's infallible nose to sniff out the truth...before someone else faces the final curtain call.

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.