Turnpike Flameout - Hardcover

In the tradition of Get Shorty and The Player, Turnpike Flameout pierces America's veil of celebrity and asks: When does fame become a crime?

Early praise for Turnpike Flameout:

"Turnpike Flameout is one of the funniest, smartest novels I've ever read. Everything about the book is top-shelf--the characters, the humor, the writing, the satire, the slick plot. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit it, but Eric Dezenhall has written a novel that leaves the rest of us mumbling and shaking our heads, wondering how in the world he pulled it off."
--Martin Clark, author of The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living and Plain Heathen Mischief

"Turnpike Flameout is what's really going on while the rest of us are watching the spun-for-the-masses version of star meltdowns on Entertainment Tonight! A fast-paced trip behind the facade of celebrity persona into the rarely seen reality of what it means to be a fading star. The ultimate celebrity tantrum, totally outrageous and totally believable."
--Lisa Brandt, Celebrity Tantrums: The Official Dirt

"With snortworthy humor, Eric Dezenhall takes you to a messy, sinister realm - the weird world of crisis-managing a retrograde pop idol who's gone right off the edge. Finally - an irresistible mystery for people who hide their copy of Us Weekly inside a copy of Vanity Fair inside a copy of the Economist. Smart, bizarre, and oddly danceable."
--Hank Stuever, author of Off Ramp: Adventures and Heartache in the American Elsewhere

Praise for Eric Dezenhall and Shakedown Beach:

"A cheeky political satire...Here's proof that politics is funny when it isn't even trying."
--Marilyn Stasio, NYTBR

"Reads like a Carl Hiaasen novel hijacked from South Florida and plopped down in South Jersey...a well-observed thriller."
--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Dezenhall is the most mordantly funny writer not named Westlake, with an ear for the zinger, a lie detector that makes mincemeat of politicians and spinmeisters, and the ability to plot like Machiavelli."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"Dezenhall is the most mordantly funny writer not named Westlake.” –Kirkus Reviews

When a private jet crashes in the New Jersey Pine Barrens on the Fourth of July, the search begins for faded rock and roller, Turnpike Bobby Chin. The singer suspiciously survives and turns up wandering in the haunted woods. Soon after, a celebrity sculptor vanishes after unveiling his unflattering statue of the star. The cops say it's homicide, and make plans to bust Turnpike Bobby.
When the media circus begins, gangland-bred pollster Jonah Eastman is hired to devise a "P.A.S." (Plausible Alternative Scenario) for the sculptor's death. A beautiful au pair vanishes from Atlantic City, and it’s all the media want to talk about – not Bobby. Which angers Bobby because he hasn’t gotten this much attention since the Reagan Administration. As he works to vindicate the rocker, Jonah enters the inner-sanctum of the celebrity icon, a world so seductive and lethal that Jonah waxes nostalgic for his days working for the Mafia.
TURNPIKE FLAMEOUT is a black comic ride through the underbelly of mega-stardom and the spins employed by handlers to ensure that crime pays. Quite well, actually.