A stand-up comic haunted by a family secret.
It’s 1980, Los Angeles. Dan Goodis is a struggling, irreverent stand-up comic who likes to speak his mind. When he witnesses the brutal assassination of a brilliant hermit physicist, it sets him on a path that leads to the discovery of his father’s dark CIA past, and he soon learns that being funny can be deadly serious business.
Before he is murdered, the physicist inadvertently gives Dan a secret code. Dan doesn’t want to be involved, but soon discovers he has no choice: he is being hunted down by members of a secret cabal who want to silence him and stop him from revealing what he knows.
Obsessed with the puzzle, Dan realizes he must solve the riddle of the hermit’s death if he is going to find a way out. He enlists the help of his family and friends, as well as his new lover, Lauren. But he quickly finds out that by involving his allies, he has exposed all of them to imminent danger.
Dan realizes he is in too deep, and there is no turning back. It seems his only option is to put everything on the line, though he knows that disclosure of the hermit’s code could cost him his life.
"After a captivating first chapter that involves a hit man who fires his kill-shots into Jon's body before another man kills him, readers--through a flashback--return to a time ten years earlier. The intriguing twists and turns in this thriller keep readers spellbound as the storyline moves forward at a fast pace.
The author brings this character to life in a way that allows readers to see the subtle and not-so-subtle changes that take place in his personality as the years pass. This sets the background for ten years of mystery involving the CIA, additional murders, and Jon's realization that his own life is in danger. His father is murdered, and the younger Goodis knows that he is being followed and watched. Fascinating clues are planted but readers are kept guessing with their eyes glued to the pages.
The author suggests that if Jon had known what was ahead that he would have continued teaching, not bought a dog, and certainly not gone running with Hunt on that fateful day ten years earlier. Of course, readers won't feel this way as they would have missed out on the unforgettablestoryline of this "must read" thriller."
- IP Book Reviewers
"Stumbling across the scene as Soviet agents sadistically slaughter an émigré physicist in Malibu Canyon launches a billionaire industrialist's son--and standup wannabe--on a Kafkaesque '80s odyssey that can't decide whether it's a thriller, love story, spy novel or social commentary.
Far from producing an effect of agreeable mystification, the author's circling back to events and shifting their apparent reality ends up simply frustrating... ambitiously plotted."
- Kirkus Discoveries
