Thursday, April 19, 2018

A Very Entertaining Sendup of the Thriller Genre from Lee Goldberg

Lee Goldberg is a very funny guy. He's also a prolific writer with something on the order of five dozen books to his credit, along with a host of television shows for which he has written scripts, and he's brought all of that experience to bear on his newest book, True Fiction, which is a terrific read.

The protagonist, Ian Ludlow, is, like Goldberg, a very successful writer. Ludlow has build a career around a series of novels featuring Clint Straker, an action hero in the mold of Jack Reacher or James Bond. Clint is an incredibly handsome, tough guy who thinks quickly on his feet and who has multiple ways of disposing of the villains who challenge him, no matter how great their numbers. And as scores of women can attest, he's also fantastic in bed.

Ludlow is nothing like his hero at all. He's an insecure schlub who exists largely on junk food and who hasn't had a meaningful relationship with a woman in ages. He's terribly out of shape and couldn't fight his way out of the proverbial wet paper bag. (He's obviously unlike his creator in this respect in that, as anyone can tell from his author photo, Mr. Goldberg is something of an international sex symbol.)

As the book opens, Ludlow is having trouble getting traction on his new book when someone remotely takes control of a passenger plane and crashes it into a hotel on Waikiki Beach. Watching the news, Ludlow is horrified because several years earlier, in an effort to stay a step ahead of the terrorist threat to America, the CIA had gathered together a group of thriller writers and asked them to dream up scenarios that bad guys might use to attack the U.S. Ludlow recognizes this plan as his very own and then discovers that all of the other writers who were at the meeting have had fatal "accidents" within the last few months.

A few weeks ago, Ludlow himself narrowly escaped death when his house blew up. Investigators determined that the explosion was an accident, but Ludlow suddenly realizes that it was no accident at all. Out of nowhere, he's been catapulted into a scenario straight out of one of his own novels.

When the realization hits him, Ludlow is in Seattle on a book tour, accompanied by a feisty young dog sitter named Margo who doubles as a book tour escort. Ludlow and Margo must go on the run in a desperate effort to stay one step ahead of the villains who are in hot pursuit and who are using every modern technological tool to track them down and kill them. Defeating these guys would all be in a day's work for Clint Straker, but sadly, Ian Ludlow is no Clint Straker--or is he? If he and Margo are going to survive, Ludlow will have to dig deep and plot a new scenario in which a thriller writer, rather than his superhero, can rise and save the day.

This is a hugely entertaining romp and a fairly quick read. The book is laugh-out-loud funny and is a great sendup of the thriller genre. Given his experience in television, Goldberg knows how to strip a scene down to its essence and how to keep the action moving at a breakneck pace. Ludlow and Margo are very appealing characters and I loved spending an evening in their company. I'm already looking forward to the second installment in this series.

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