Bergman, Andrew

New York. 1975. June 1975. Holt Rinehart Winston. 1st Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0030138167. 216 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Stan Zagorski. keywords: Mystery America Los Angeles. FROM THE PUBLISHER - It is February, 1947. In a shabby office building on Omar Avenue in Los Angeles, Congressman Richard M. Nixon (B., Cal.) is addressing Jack LeVine, New York's wisecracking, wily private eye. ‘America is facing the greatest national security crisis in her history. You have your right to disagree and that's what makes America great. What I am saying is that your right to disagree will be endangered if the Soviet program for world domination progresses any further.' ‘Thanks for the tip,' says LeVine. Jack LeVine, in Hollywood to help a troubled screenwriter pal, discovers that the movie capital is rife with fear and mistrust. As Humphrey Bogart tells LeVine during a heartstopping chase up the Pacific Coast Highway: ‘They'll nail anyone who ever scratched his ass during the National Anthem.' LeVine, it seems, has stumbled upon the very dawn of the blacklist, as well as a couple of murders, and a disturbing romance with a beautiful, enigmatic widow. Nixon, Bogart, John Garfield, Lauren Bacall, the FBI, Ava Gardner, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the House Committee on Un-American Activities are but a few of the forces LeVine must face in solving a case-comical, tragical, political - that begins and ends where fantasy and reality collide, a Hollywood movie lot. Andrew Bergman introduced Jack LeVine in his first NOVEL THE BIG KISS-OFF OF 1944. and wrote the original story and co-authored the screenplay of Blazing Saddles. inventory #1372 ISBN: 0030138167.