Digging James Dean : A Nina Zero Novel

Rating:
Summary: A five star look at Hollywood
Review: Hollywood paparazzi Nina Zero works for the tabloid Scandal Times fittingly out of a former sewage works warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. Her boss Frank informs Nina that the two of them are flying to Chicago and from there driving to a cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana where someone stole the remains of Rebel Without a Cause actor James Dean. Frank tells Nina that her parole officer gave the okay for her and her Frank to go on the assignment.

In Indiana, Nina and Frank wonder who would steal the bones of Dean and why. Could the culprits be kids on a lark, the Raelians who believe ET scientists planted humanity on earth and desire a cloning of Mr. Dean, or a the Church of the Divine Thespians, whom she "met" in Hollywood through a tip from a rough living sixteen year old recent Hoosier transplant. Anyway you look at it; Nina plans to rattle a bone or two even as the skeletons from her own past such as Mary Alice Baker (her family name) surface to shake her complacency.

The latest Nina Zero Hollywood (and in this case Indiana) tale is a wild journalistic investigative tale that is all over the place, but ultimately returns to classic American economics of supply and demand (everything has a price and is for sale). A subplot involving Mary Alice's sister whom she has not seen in decades adds knowledge to what readers know about the ex-con. Though the ending may put some readers off the series (this reviewer thought it apropos), Robert Eversz third tale may be a Zero, but is also a five star look at Hollywood.

Harriet Klausner