Potboiler

by Jesse Kellerman

Overview

An Edgar(R) Award Nominee for Best Novel

Jesse Kellerman—the international bestselling author of The Executor and The Genius—brings his prodigious talent to bear on a topic he knows well in this hilarious and surprising spin on the modern blockbuster thriller novel.

Missing for months after a tragic boating accident, William de Vallée, the superstar thriller writer, is pronounced dead. His oldest friend, Arthur Pfefferkorn, receives the news with an unsettling mix of grief and envy. A middle-aged college professor with long-dead literary aspirations, Pfefferkorn can’t help but feel outshone by his friend’s success—especially since he married the woman Pfefferkorn loved.

But now Bill is gone, and Pfefferkorn is there to comfort Carlotta in her time of grief. Reconnecting with de Vallée’s widow makes more than one of his dreams come true . . . until it plunges him into a shadowy world of intrigue and double crosses, where no one can be trusted—and nothing can be taken seriously.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101578957
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/05/2012
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	1 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jesse Kellerman is the author of Potboiler, The Executor, The Genius, Trouble, Sunstroke. and with Jonathan Kellerman, The Golem of Hollywood. His books and plays have won several awards and an Edgar Award nomination. He lives in California.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Seldom, if ever, have the cloak-and-dagger folk—of any stripe, ours or theirs—appeared so omniscient, so omnipotent and so perfectly awful as they do in Kellerman’s mordantly funny latest… Another brilliant performance. Kellerman has fun here, and so will his readers.”
—Kirkus (starred)

“Kellerman ruminates on the practice of writing, the experience of sudden literary success, the nature of friendship, and the contrasts between the lives of writers and spies. Potboiler is very funny – and insightful.”
—Booklist

“Kellerman balances the line between thrills and satire in this unique reading experience filled with mysteries, conspiracies, double crosses and shadowy villains….Fun in completely unexpected ways. Only a great writer like Kellerman could make it work at all well.”
—Romantic Times

“This satire heavy novel works well… There are truly funny observations about publishing, what merits good writing, and the excesses of the thriller genre.”
—Library Journal

"A tough, funny satire of the titled genre… Kellerman wants to have fun with thrillers… creating a niche for himself by focusing on characters who are never as smart as they think they are…. a frequently hilarious Moebius strip of a novel."
—Palm Beach Post

Editorial Reviews

Potboiler…takes thriller writing and stands it on its head while making goofy faces…darkly hilarious…

The Washington Post - Yvonne Zipp

Very funny—and insightful.”—Booklist

“Truly funny observations about publishing, what merits good writing, and the excesses of the thriller genre.”—Library Journal

From the Publisher

Seldom, if ever, have the cloak-and-dagger folk--of any stripe, ours or theirs--appeared so omniscient, so omnipotent and so perfectly awful as they do in Kellerman's mordantly funny latest. If you put the question to him--and he was of a mind to answer it--Arthur Pfefferkorn would probably acknowledge that, yes, he'd led one of those gray lives up to now, a life without much in the way of accomplishment. He was what he was--a middle-aged English professor at an undistinguished university, whose courses were neither flocked to nor fled from. True, there was that long-ago novel: respectful reviews, bleak sales figures. This, of course, is in marked contrast to the performance of internationally famous William de Vallée, who pumps out bestsellers as if they were pellets from a shotgun and who happens to be Arthur's oldest and best friend. But then suddenly, Bill is lost at sea, occasioning in Arthur's life what amounts to a sea change. Deeply involved in this are the luscious Carlotta, Bill's not-so-grieving widow, and a certain unfinished thriller, the completion of which implies Arthur's acceptance of that old fictional standby: the Faustian bargain. Turns out that Bill wasn't just an internationally famous, bestselling author. He was also a highly effective American spy, whose loss has created an intolerable vacuum. He has to be replaced. "Tag," says the satanic superagent who explains all this to Arthur. "You're it." And just like that, Arthur Pfefferkorn's life goes from gray to incandescent. Another brilliant performance from Kellerman (The Executor, 2010, etc.). Potboiler? Hardly. Kellerman has fun here, and so will his readers.

Kirkus Reviews