Personal Effects: A Novel

New York: Arbor House, 1986. 1st Printing. Hardcover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo or 8° (Medium Octavo): 7¾" x 9¾" tall. 444 pp. Solidly bound copy and dj with moderate external wear, crisp pages and clean text. Extra mylar wrapper. An Ex-Public-Library-Book with all the common, standard and usual signs (stamps, stickers, envelope, etc.). From Publishers Weekly Film critic Reed (Do You Sleep in the Nude?, presents a Hollywood mystery that simmers more often than it sizzles. The novel is framed by the murder of Gilda Greenway, cat-eyed ``Pearls Girl'' of the industry's golden days. The chief suspects are the so-called Four Fans, one or more of whom might have had reason to hate the woman whose generosity helped them to attain stardom. Gossip columnist Billy Buck sifts through their shared past for clues. There's Inez, whose need for drugs and alcohol whittles her writing talent to a nub; her husband, King, a silver-screen legend who hops from bed to bed in the hope that his wife's friend Devon will be lying in the next one; the latter, meanwhile, is driven by a social conscience that alienates her public; and Gilda's goddaughter May, who brought the group together, is a raucous libertine and the shrewdest agent in town. Bursts of crass, campy good humor liven up an otherwise ordinary tale of Hollywood libido, stocked with familiar characters.