Killing Paparazzi
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Nina Zero is a girl who attracts trouble. Serious trouble of the guns-a-blazing, knife in the back variety. After serving a prison sentence for single-handedly blowing up LAX airport - by mistake - she finds on her release that the world just won't allow her to lead a simple life. The "electrifying" demise of heavy metal group Death Row in a hotel hot-tub gives Nina the opportunity to launch a new career as a paparazza - but all too soon the shine of her glamorous job begins to tarnish with the chilling realization that someone is killing Los Angeles' paparazzi.
While the corpses of her competition pile up around L.A. Nina takes it upon herself to track down the killer, becoming prey for both the police and the murderer. While searching for the killer she manages to squeeze in an off-the-wall green card wedding, a guest appearance on the docu-soap Meat Wagon, and a walk-on part in a longstanding family feud. At turns hilarious and thrilling, with a pace as fast as the paparazzi's flashbulb, Robert M. Eversz's Killing Paparazzi is no normal trip down the red carpet.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Raymond Chandler's mean streets were never like those traversed in this new satirical novel by the author of Shooting Elvis. Nina Zero, n e Mary Alice Baker, is paroled after serving five years for blowing up LAX airport by mistake. Starting a new life for herself, she's going to earn two thousand dollars by marrying, so that her new English husband can obtain a green card. There's more: when members of a heavy-metal band called Death Row are electrocuted in a hotel hot tub, she sells pictures of their demise to a one-man photo agency and signs on as a paparazza. At last, she seems to have found her calling. But someone is killing L.A. paparazzi. As if that weren't enough, her husband's body is found beaten and stabbed. Properly enraged, Nina resolves to track down the killer herself. There's the expected unexpected ending, but half the fun is getting there in this noirish ramble across L.A.'s seedy underbelly, most notably Nina's deadpan narration ("Frank was one of those guys who could take a bite at the beginning of a sentence, chew through the middle and lunge for another bite without so much as a comma to separate mouthfuls"). Along the way Eversz manages to satirize rock groups, television, the glitterati and California correctional facilities, among other tempting targets. While the satirical overtones are omnipresent, the violence is a little too visceral to take lightly, and the overall effect a little too close to reality particularly in the wake of September 11 for comfort.
