In two earlier novels, Blue Heaven
(1988) and Putting on the Ritz
(1991), Keenan adapted and updated P.G. Wodehouse to his own original and side-splitting ends. Now, after a long hiatus largely spent as a writer and producer on the TV show Frasier
, Keenan has produced a comic masterpiece that in intricacy of plotting and brilliance of language rivals the best of Wodehouse. Keenan sends his down-on-their-luck heroes—ordinary guy and narrator Philip Cavanaugh; Philip's unscrupulous pal and former lover, Gilbert Selwyn; and their brainy friend, Claire Simmons—to Hollywood, where Philip winds up helping aging has-been movie star, Lily Malenfant, pen her scandalous memoirs. In fact, Philip has been hired as a spy by Lily's more successful actress sister, Diana, and Diana's son, Stephen Donato, a closeted male action star, who both have good reason to fear the dirt Lily plans to dish. Enter the boys' nemesis from Blue Heaven
, Moira Finch, and their fortunes plummet in a series of misadventures involving blackmail, male prostitutes, impersonating a police officer, and a sex act caught on videotape that's as audacious as it is hilarious. By the end, a vindictive DA thinks he has Philip and Gilbert at his mercy, but of course he didn't reckon with Claire, who comes up with a solution to their troubles worthy of that which Jeeves uses to save Bertie's neck in The Code of the Woosters
. Hitherto marketed primarily to gay readers, Keenan deserves to win a large, appreciative audience of all sexual persuasions with this tour de force. Agent, Geri Thoma at the Elaine Markson Agency. (Jan.)
