The James Dean Affair: A Neil Gulliver and Stevie Marriner Novel - Softcover

The James Dean Affair may not be an affair to remember, but it's a pleasant enough romp through a contemporary Los Angeles that's even more haunted by ghosts of movie stars than you already think it is. The plot of the story turns on a James Dean impersonator--or is he the real thing?--who shows up at a party marking the release of the James Dean commemorative stamp. This impersonator kills one Nico Mercouri, who is one more link in the chain of bizarre deaths visited upon costars of Mr. Dean, including Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo. So reasons the detective team of Neil Gulliver, an L.A. Daily columnist, and Stevie Marriner, an aging but sexy soap opera queen. Ex-spouses and best friends (anything's possible in fiction, right?), they set out on a goose chase around the Southland, hunting down the true identity of the killer and getting into enough scrapes to fill a 1950s B movie.

It's their pal Augie, AKA Brother Kalman, a one-eyed Brother of the Order of the Rhyming Heart, who first sets them thinking that the Dean look-alike may be the real McCoy. "I'm sent packing to Santa Catalina to find Jesus and instead I find Jimmy Dean," he declares over doughnuts at Fred's 62, a '50s diner. "The man has been dead for going on 30 years, yet here he is, and now I know the truth: Santa Catalina is heaven." Part hero worship, part talk-show confessional, The James Dean Affair romps through a pop culture mausoleum with gleeful abandon. Robert Levinson has mixed in references to many '50s movies and sprinkled The Great Gatsby over the top for a little temporal texture. (In the course of hearing about pudgy, preteen Stevie's rape--an episode that is tonally dissonant with the rest of the novel--we learn she named her imaginary friends Zelda, Daisy, and Jordan.)

The meager plot of The James Dean Affair gets a big kick out of the Second Amendment: Neil and Stevie pack heat, and without those weapons, thrills would be scarce, along the lines of I-remember-Nat-during-her-Miracle-on-34th-Street-days. But no matter. Too much nostalgia, too many characters, and way too many car chases only make for a fairly likable if fluffy regional mystery that should appeal to fans of Hollywood glam. --Kathi Inman Berens

Sexy soap opera star Stevie (aka Stephanie) Marriner and her former husband, reporter Neil Gulliver, return for a second romp through Hollywood scandals, past and present. Stevie convinces Neil to attend a ceremony at the Hollywood post office for the issuing of the James Dean commemorative stamp. Stevie hopes that an item in Neil's column about one of Dean's long-ago co-stars, Nico Mercouri, will help Nico keep his job with Stevie's soap. Violence erupts at the ceremony, however, and Nico ends up dead, killed by a man eerily resembling James Dean himself. Aided by his old friend and mentor, Augie Fowler, now the self-styled "Brother Kalman," Neil sets off on a quest for the truth behind the murder, while trying to keep both himself and Stevie alive. At the heart of the present-day mayhem is the question: did James Dean really die on September 30, 1955? And if not, how did he turn into a heartless killer? The investigation takes Neil and Stevie on a tortuous course through Hollywood history, examining the fates of many of those connected with Dean in his heyday, like Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, both of whom died under odd or brutal circumstances. Fans of Hollywood history and trivia will have a blast with the serpentine plot and arcane Dean lore that Levinson puts in the service of his puzzle. Others may find it all too convoluted and opt to rent one of Dean's old movies instead. Agent, Susan Crawford. (Aug.)
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