Has Anyone Seen My Toes?

Humorist Buckley (Make Russia Great Again) follows, in his funny if silly latest, a ruminating screenwriter in South Carolina. The unnamed narrator is wary of snakes and alligator-filled waters, and hopes to repair his reputation after Hollywood producers turned his screenplay about “Swamp Fox” Francis Marion into a pornographic folly. His new project, which he hopes to make into a blockbuster, features a good-hearted Nazi who kidnaps and befriends FDR. But the screenwriter distracts himself with down the rabbit hole Google searches about writers who committed suicide and deceased cast members of The Russians Are Coming. He’s also obsessed with a local burger joint. As his second wife busies herself with estate auctions that include such rare items as Kirk Douglas’s loincloth from Spartacus and Honor Blackman’s brassiere in Goldfinger, the screenwriter gets caught up by the local race for county coroner, convinced one of the candidates is bent on premature burials and nefarious campaign tactics, perhaps with Russian intervention. Then there’s his pricey concierge doctor, plying him with medications that may be undermining his ability to think clearly. Buckley gets some good gags out of the Nazi/FDR screenplay’s fate, though tangential threads such as the coroner’s race are left open-ended. Still, this amounts to a laugh-out-loud take on the writerly life. (Aug.)