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Post by dem bones on Jul 28, 2020 7:06:37 GMT
Jonathan Fast - The Inner Circle (Magnum, 1980: originally Delacorte Press, 1979)  Chris MooreBlurb: The Inner Circle
1977: TV star and gifted actor is killed in a car crash that looks like suicide.
1967: a gorgeous blonde actress, sex-symbol of an age, dies from drugs.
1957: young teenage idol shoots himself with a gun he thought unloaded.
Every ten years since Hollywood's silent days, film superstars had died in mysterious circumstances, a sacrifice on the altar of fame ... Was it chance, or coincidence?
It was Tony Valenti who died in 1977. He had begged his friend, Louis Pinkle to help him. But Louis was too late.
Louis' incredible investigation of Tony's mysterious death and the sinister Inner Circle took him from the golden streets of Los Angeles to the darkest heart of the Mexican jungle.
A stunningly inventive thriller of Hollywood's secret history. Coming to this one off the back of Black Christmas and 126 pages in it's clear that Stephen King tells true. As with Altman's novel, this one fair tears along. When an agitated Tony Valenti turns up on his doorstep late one night, raving that everyone is out to kill him, Louis Pinkle, assumes the hugely popular TV star has been caning the drugs and booze. Tony seems to pull himself together, apologises for the intrusion and jumps in his car .... The following morning's front pages are full of Tony's 'suicide' on the motorway. Hollywood grieves the loss of yet another favoured son. Consumed by guilt at turning his old friend away, Louis gets to wondering if there were some substance to Valenti's claim that an 'Inner Circle' were out to get him? An aspiring screenwriter, Pinkle makes end meet moonlighting as an investigative reporter on BonHomme magazine. Encouraged by girlfriend Carol Goodkind; a self-described "dumb Californian beach bunny" (she is anything but airheaded), Pinkle persuades sympathetic editor, Flora McReese, to fund his investigation into the movie star's death. He attends the funeral, where Tony's widow, Bini, comes onto him. On viewing Tony's corpse, Louis is intrigued by a clay fetish hanging from a leather strip around the dead man's neck alongside his trademark four gold chains. Never seen that before. After the wake, Bini invites Pinkle to ride home with she and Marty Robin, the dead man's agent and lifetime friend. On leaving the premises, he's set upon by two young toughs who work him over with murderous intent. Marty calls an ambulance, pays for Pinkie's hospital treatment, but did he set up the attack? Marty's previous clients include tragic 'sixties screen goddess, Rosalee Roma, who died in 1967 of an "accidental" overdose. Rosalee and Tony both had a psychiatrist in common, Dr. Abraham Kellerman, seventy. It was Kellerman reputedly supplied the actress her fatal last fix. A second attempt on Pinkle results in the deaths of his assailants as they attempt to drive him off the highway and over a cliff edge. If an 'Inner Circle' exist, it seems they've no qualms at silencing meddlers. TBC
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Post by helrunar on Jul 28, 2020 13:16:32 GMT
That cover is hysterical. Image is innately funny and the juxtaposition of an Oscar statuette being used as a voodoo doll against the tagline about an "Indian death cult" feels more Sixties than Seventies.
Hope the novel is as good as Magister King shilled in that burb!
cheers, Hel
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 28, 2020 13:20:15 GMT
this one fair tears along. Note the name of the author. |
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Post by dem bones on Jul 28, 2020 18:30:33 GMT
this one fair tears along. Note the name of the author. Ooh, you rascal, you! "They kill a movie star every ten years. Its part of a ritual worship of Tezcatlipoca, the Aztec god of night and magic and sorcery ...." Just as I suspected! Louis Pinkle recruits best pal Alex Kotsky - a charismatic Marxist action hippie, addicted to Milky Way bars and Country Joe & the Fish - to help him expose Hollywood's diabolical secret. Movie superstardom is acquired via membership of a secret society - and that strictly by invitation. Only those willing to sacrifice body and soul attain entry to this exclusive club, because the Fame God must be placated every ten years. Should you be chosen for sacrifice after only the briefest period at the top, those are the breaks, ain't no good wailing "unfair!" Teen idol Dean Jamison only got to make three movies before he was bundled aboard a plane, destination the San Ignacio pyramid of doom. Tony Valenti is but the latest in a long line of household names to pick the short straw. No shortage of incident. Grave-robbing. Organ-theft (from a corpse). Terrors of the wax museum. A jackal god feasting on human hearts torn from the still living body. Ending is predictable as it is perfect. No matter how fame corrupts, few are prepared to turn down a golden opportunity to achieve mass adoration. "I told Kellerman not to take you but he insisted. He does the choosing because he's been in the Circle the longest. I was against it all the way. I said, 'Take Bobby DeNiro, take Travolta." |
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Post by Dr Strange on Jul 28, 2020 21:56:27 GMT
According to wikipedia, the author was once married to Erica Jong; and his father was Howard Fast, who wrote Spartacus among other things. He now teaches social work.
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Post by dem bones on Jul 29, 2020 10:16:28 GMT
According to wikipedia, the author was once married to Erica Jong; and his father was Howard Fast, who wrote Spartacus among other things. He now teaches social work. I wouldn't mind a read of his two non-fiction works, Ceremonial Violence: A Psychological Explanation of School Shootings and Beyond bullying : breaking the cycle of shame, bullying, and violence. The Inner Circle is an odd one. Despite downbeat message - almost everyone ultimately sells out, almost everyone has their price - the tone remains jaunty throughout. Even the violent sequences have something slapstick about them. The 'almost' in question is Pinkle's sidekick, Alex Kotsky, the anarchic hippie action man, who lives life very much on his own wild terms and has plenty fun doing so. At one point Pinkle wonders how and why the dream went sour "Where'd it all go ... Hippies. Haight -Ashbury. Peace and love and good vibes ....' Alex sets him straight. "It was co-opted by the media. the media tamed it and sanitized it and sold it to Middle America. That's what happens to every revolution in America. Look man, here's the Black Panthers. Next thing you know, there are Black Panther fashion boutiques and Black Panther soul food franchises. The Black Panther comedy hour on the tube. That's the way this country maintains the status quo. That's why Marx missed the boat on the ascendancy of the working class. Know what I mean, man?"Even if we don't, Kotsky does. Long after his contemporaries gave up and became the turbo-charged Capitalists they despised, he's still doing his own thing. Unlike Pinkle, who is ruled by an all-consuming ambition to become the go-to screenwriter. Ultimately he's given a stark choice. Play the game, or embrace the joys of destitution. |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jul 29, 2020 19:18:26 GMT
According to wikipedia, the author was once married to Erica Jong; and his father was Howard Fast, who wrote Spartacus among other things. He now teaches social work. This is the excuse for reading Jong that I have been looking for. |
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