Larry King? The talk show guy? Wrote a mystery? Oh yeah --- and it
reads like he had a ball doing it. The main guy is hip liberal talk
show host Arthur Vandermeer, who resembles Mr. King in many
respects. But if the famed TV host of Larry King Live is
half the hypochondriac his creation is, he'd barely be able to get
out of bed in the morning.

Larry Moon, a right-wing tabloid newspaper columnist, is pulled in
as a last minute replacement to interview his nemesis, Vandermeer,
for a fluff piece on spectacular views of the Manhattan skyline.
Moon, whose career is nosediving, was angling for a front-page
byline with a big star, but this doesn't sound like what he had in
mind. Then he falls into an exclusive when Vandermeer's daughter,
Allison, who knows how to push her father's buttons, announces
while Moon is at the house that she's going to elope with Goonie, a
kid from the projects. But she ends up missing, and Vandermeer,
fearing a kidnapping, is distraught.

Some other New York types enter the story in a mirthful mix-up ---
a monosyllabic private eye who hates the Disneyfication of Times
Square; a hotel doorman from Queens with grandiose plans to strike
it rich; throw in a madam, a pint-sized madman brawler and a
befuddled, idea-a-minute media magnate and you have a Manhattan
cocktail of mayhem.

In a Runyonesque tribute to the spirit of the characters who
inhabit the Big Apple, King states in a forward that he hopes the
love, admiration and affection he and his co-writer Tom Cook have
for New York and its people shine through. It most certainly
does!