cover image Twilight

Twilight

Billy Dee Williams, Elizabeth Atkins Bowman. Forge, $25.95 (480pp) ISBN 978-0-312-87909-9

Alleged romantic thriller Twilight is the result of a collaboration between actor Billy Dee Williams and novelist Elizabeth Atkins Bowman (White Chocolate). Actor Sonny Whittaker, a cheesy lothario who's shooting a major film in Brazil, falls for beautiful judge Simone Thompson, who coincidentally finds herself assigned to Sonny's messy custody case back in L.A. Meanwhile, there's a crazed stalker called Narcissus running around, penning horrible death-threat poems to them and just about everyone they know. The dialogue is agonizing (""Let me toast you with this syrupy nectar of the tropical gods""), the characterizations (starlets, producers, reporters, lawyers) paper-thin and the plot absurd. It verges on so-bad-it's-good camp, but misses.