Rating: 
Summary: Hated the ending!
Review: I loved the book all the way through until the end. I HATED the ending! It gave me the creeps. I'm anxious to see what character Mr. Dunne invents to take over where Gus left off.
Rating: 
Summary: A real pleasure ride
Review: I so thoroughly enjoyed the book, that I then read an Inconvient Woman. If you don't mind the name dropping, it's a real glimpse into Dunne's own crisis'. An easy, very enjoyable read. Most fascinating blend of novel and memoir. The book comes really alive if you are at all familiar with the LA area.
Rating: 
Summary: don't rush to read this one
Review: i've liked other stuff by dunne, but found this very pretentious . . . a lot of name dropping . . . not much substance.
Rating:
Summary: As Bill and Ted would say "Most Excellent"
Review: Having read some of the other reviews, I would like to know why "they" continued reading once they discovered it was not to their liking?? I have been reading Mr. Dunne for years and was not let down in the least. This book was wonderful and every bit as good as his post's in Vanity Fair during the trial. I loved living vicariously through Gus and his adventures. I found the Andy twist fantastic and LOLROMAOTF at the end! Bravo Mr. Dunne!
Rating:
Summary: Heterosexual Truman Capote clone without the talent
Review: Pick a page, any page, PLEASE, as the recently dead Henny Youngman said. There will be at least one and usually several famous or notorious names, almost always a good friend of Gus/Dominick. Almost unreadable unless you subscribe to The Enquirer or The Star, and good evidence for the vacuity of Vanity Fair since Tina Brown left. Also, it is VERY POORLY edited, with numerous repeats, etc. If you want to read a crazy book about LA trials, try Gary Indiana's "Resentment". Mr. Indiana hated Dunne's book in his review in the LA Times, and also hated Mr. Dunne personally in "Resentment".
Rating:
Summary: I was not impressed!
Review: I was expecting to really enjoy this book, but I was disappointed. The continuous name-dropping was a distraction, the main character wasn't very exciting, and the ending was disappointing. It took me longer than normal to finish because it kept putting me to sleep.
Rating:
Summary: A Giant of Literature
Review: The best book I've read in years. Dunne deserves the Nobel. He is The Master of the American novel.
Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I, too, read this book in a very short time...right thru dinner, much to the chagrin of my husband. I found it fascinating. Dunne did not disappoint me. He told the story in the context of which he reported it. All the people he mentioned cared about the O.J. trial just like us regular, non-rich and non-famous people did. The movie stars and billionaries were transfixed in front of the TV just like I was or the girl next door was. Again, cudos to the author. It was a greta read and a very interesting perspective. I am a medi junkie.
Rating: 
Summary: A torrent of name dropping.
Review: I'm appalled by the torrential name dropping which goes on in this book. It is all the author seems to be capable of doing. Gus Bailey is a gossip columnist, a pathetic form of gutter sniper. But he pretends to be everybody's good old buddy, otherwise no one would contact him anxious to spill the beans. The events surround the O.J. Simpson murder trial, or rather the rich and famous people around and about it. And what a shallow bunch they turn out to be. It is obvious that Dominick Dunne is the Gus Bailey character who strongly believes O.J. to be guilty of murdering his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her companion Ronald Goldman. The novel, if it can be called that, is narrated by a third person, but since there is much dialogue, such as, Gus said, "Blah, blah ..." I found it difficult to separate the first person from the third. It is too obvious that Dominick Dunne is the big "I" here. There is much plugging of books written by Gus Bailey, and wouldn't you know it they carry the same titles as those written by Dominick Dunne in real life. Everything is plug or drop throughout this silly book. From time to time Gus says, "This would be a terrific scene in a novel..." or something like "I'll have a character say ..." or "... He's going to be a wonderful character for my novel ..." after he's already described relevant scenes in conversation with one of his many famous characters. Much of this is a device to circumnavigate the fact from fiction problem, but grates when said too often which is the case here. The sheer audacity of the name dropping becomes lengthy and irritating, and the dialogue fails to carry any weight other than to further increase the length of the book. What's more, the corpus becomes bitty and lacks the coherence of continuity. The swath of "names" one stumbles through is enough to choke the mind, it's Kirk Douglas this or Nancy Reagan that or Marcia Clark or Michael Jackson or Hillary Clinton or Barbara Streisand or Warren Beatty or Dustin Hoffman or Sean Connery or Goldie Hawn or Elizabeth Taylor or Heidi Fleiss or Dan Rather or Don Ohlmeyer or Mark Lonsdale or Frank Sinatra or Annette Bening or Kurt Russell or Tom Hanks or Claus von Bülow or Fergie or King Hussein or Queen Noor or Princess Diana, and Andy Cunanan is thrown in for good measure, on and on and on ... Dunne will chisel in a name anywhere. On page 89 "..."Is that the restaurant owned by Michael Jackson's son? I don't mean Elizabeth Taylor's friend Michael Jackson that Johnnie Cochran represented in the child molestation case," said Gus." And on page 159 "... Tina Sinatra, Frank's daughter, was there at another table ..." is a typical example of how the author overdoes it. Why bother to say "Frank's daughter"? It's not necessary and it's redundant. What the novel does show, if it's to be taken in the least bit seriously, is the condition of our society, and in particular that of the rich and famous who are seen to be a shallow bunch of people. They strive to be seen in the court room or at dinners or functions given to discuss the O.J. case. All this to promote themselves. The fact that two people were brutally murdered is shunted to the sidings and the court case comes over as another arm of the entertainment business. Chapter 21 contains a family crisis when Gus's son Zander goes missing while hiking in the Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona. Here is the strongest and most moving writing in the book. Gus is sitting with his crippled ex-wife Peach, who suffers from Multiple Sclerosis, trying to tell her about their missing son. In doing so Gus covers everything the book has to say and more. He does it well and in a few pages. But despite this outbreak of decent writing Dominick Dunne fails to pull this one off. His writing is contrived and stiff, the dialogue sounds false, and each paragraph is staged simply to slip a name or names into it. Because of it his attempts at being amusing are irritating, and his attempts at being serious fail too because Dunne allows his biased outrage to smother him. At the beginning of the book it is made clear that Gus Bailey is found murdered. Who did it? At the end it is revealed, and comes as no surprise. This is certainly no who "dunne" it. The supposed twist is an unnecessary cheap shot that adds nothing to an already boring book.
Rating:
Summary: A real page turner and a who's who of celebraties intwined.
Review: Just when you thought you heard it all about OJ. Mr. Dunne's memoirs are terrific. Amazing how many celebraties breeze in an out of his account of the trial. Great tid bits about the trial as well.
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