I saw the Silver Fox drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic’s, and her hair was perfect. Then again, my literary agent’s helmet of silver hair was always perfect. Everyone in the publishing world called Alberta Pryce the Silver Fox partly because of her hair but mostly because she’d been the shrewdest literary agent in New York City for 35 years. Had represented the likes of John Cheever, Norman Mailer, Kurt Vonnegut and that tall, dashing young superstar Stewart Hoag. That would be me.

And this would be a story from the earliest days of my non-chosen second career as a celebrity ghostwriter that I’ve never shared with you before. It began almost exactly five years ago in the frigid February of 1989 right there in Trader Vic’s and ended less than a week later on the shores of sunny Southern California. One of the reasons why I’ve never mentioned it is that the project never got off the ground. Real life got in the way, which it has a nasty habit of doing.

Maybe my name is familiar to you. I was, for a brief, golden time in the early eighties, the Silver Fox’s hottest client — as big a star as a first novelist could ever hope to be. Hell, The New York Times Book Review called me the first major new literary voice of the 1980s. My novel, Our Family Enterprise, sold so many copies that it made me rich and famous. I married Joe Papp’s loveliest and most gifted young discovery, the Tony and Oscar award-winning actress Merilee Nash, and for a while we were New York’s It couple. We bought an apartment on Central Park West with eight windows overlooking the park. We zipped around town in a red 1958 Jaguar XK-150 with wire spoke wheels. And we got a basset hound, Lulu, the only dog who’s ever had her own inscribed water bowl at Elaine’s. I’d kept my crappy, unheated fifth-floor walk-up apartment on West 93rd to use as an office. And it turned out to be a good thing I did because it meant that I had somewhere to live after Merilee kicked me out. The pressure to produce an even bigger and better second novel was too much for me to handle. I got writer’s block, snorted my career up my nose and ended up broke and alone, unless you count Lulu. Merilee had been very patient and understanding with me, right up until I started sleeping with her friends. That was when she filed for a divorce. She ended up with the apartment on Central Park West and the Jaguar. She also ended up married to that fabulously successful British playwright Zack somebody.

By the summer of ’87 I owed money all over town and was facing the prospect of Lulu and me living out of a shopping cart in Riverside Park until the Silver Fox talked me into ghosting a memoir for a famous Hollywood comic of the 1950s, Sonny Day, a notoriously difficult nut who’d hired and fired every lunch pail ghost in New York. But he hadn’t encountered me. I’m plenty difficult myself. And my ego is so huge it recently applied for statehood. We fought like crazy, but ended up producing a major bestselling memoir. True, a couple of untimely deaths did occur along the way, but let’s not dwell on that.

I bent over, kissed Alberta on the cheek and gazed at her barely touched pina colada. “Since when do you drink anything other than straight bourbon?”

“I was feeling festive,” she said dryly, lighting a Newport with a silver lighter. “Care to join me?”

“Have you ever known me to feel festive?” I slid into the booth across from her, ordered a Kirin beer for myself and a small platter of shrimp tempura for my short-legged partner, who has rather unusual habits — and the breath to prove it. She circled around three times under the table before curling up on my feet, where she waited patiently for her treat.

“And bring me a straight bourbon,” Alberta said our waiter.

“Not feeling festive anymore?” I asked.

“To be honest, I just realized I’m going to need something stronger because of what I’m about to tell you.”

Right away, I felt my stomach muscles tighten. “You’re not dropping me, are you? You sold my first two short stories to The New Yorker. You’re the only agent I’ve ever had. I’ll be lost without you. In fact, I doubt anyone else will take me on.”

“I’m not dropping you, Hoagy. Stop being a neurotic writer.”

“Is there any other kind?”

The Girl Who Took What She Wanted, A Stewart Hoag Mystery Book #14
Genre: Traditional
Release: February 2023
Format: Print and Digital
Purchase Link

In this new installment of the Edgar award-winning Stewart Hoag mystery series, the ghostwriting sleuth investigates a trail of murder amidst Hollywood’s rich and famous.

Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag hasn’t written any fiction since his debut novel rocked the literary world of the 1980s and then left him with a paralyzing case of writer’s block. Since then, he’s been reduced to ghostwriting celebrity memoirs. But his newest project could have him diving back into the world of fiction in a way he never imagined.

Nikki Dymtryk is Hollywood’s hottest reality TV star, known for her wild party lifestyle and prolific sexual conquests across the music, film, and sports industries. But when the ratings for her show Being Nikki begin to drop, the Dymtryk family engineers a new plan to keep Nikki in the limelight: reinventing the young star as a bestselling author. Nikki’s team hires Hoagy to ghostwrite a steamy romance novel showcasing the glitz and glamor of the Hollywood elite.

Reluctantly, Hoagy flies out to L.A. with his trusty basset hound Lulu to see what he’s gotten himself into with Nikki. But when he finally meets the starlet, she’s nothing like the aimless, airhead image she presents to the media. This project may just be the key to getting Hoagy’s creative juices flowing again―and staying in L.A. might also give him a chance at getting back together with his actress ex-wife, Merilee. But spending time with Nikki isn’t all parties and poolside lounging. As Hoagy gets closer to the young woman, he begins to uncover the Dymtryk family’s dark secrets. Secrets that are worth killing for.

About the author
David Handler is the Edgar Award-winning, critically acclaimed author of several bestselling mystery series. He was born and raised in Los Angeles and began his career in New York City as a journalist. In 1988 he published The Man Who Died Laughing, the first of his long-series starring celebrity ghostwriter Stewart Hoag and his faithful basset hound Lulu. The Girl Who Took What She Wanted is his fourteenth Hoagy novel.

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