The Straight Man

'Wine is the latest in an unbroken line of popular private eyes-molded by Dashiell Hammett in the ’20s, psychoanalyzed by Ross Macdonald in the ’50s and ’60s, and now dragged kicking and screaming into a new decade’s cultural crunch.'-Los Angeles Times Book Review'The writing, as always in Moses Wine books, is sharp, amusing, and sophisticated.'-The New York Times Book ReviewMoses Wine is bored and depressed. Unfortunately, his shrink’s idea of helping him is to get him involved in a case. One member of the country’s most popular comedy team has jumped off a roof to his death. His wife denies it was suicide, and Moses must follow the clues from LA to the South Bronx.Simon’s own experiences in therapy, as a writer for Richard Pryor and as a freelance prober of charity campaigns, furnish the plot in the new detective Moses Wine saga. Taking his psychiatrist’s advice, Moses attacks depression by investigating Mike Ptak’s death, on behalf of his widow Emily. Mike was the straight man for the famous, manic black comic Otis King, now a virtual prisoner in Dr. Bannister’s clinic for drug addicts. With permission from the doctor, Moses questions Otis but the meeting is brief, wild and unproductive. The detective begins to share Emily’s doubts that her husband was a suicide the official verdict and follows other clues to the case. When Otis escapes and flies from Los Angeles to New York City, Moses follows him into frightening territory. The comic’s brother is King King, powerful drug lord, and his soldiers send the sleuth posthaste out of town. Back home, he attends a benefit for Cosmic Aid, to feed the world’s starving, the climax to the chilling, disturbingly realistic events that Simon spikes with earthy humor. Paperback rights to this and four previous Wine novels to Warner’s. Ever restless, ROGER L. SIMON has spent his life moving between books and movies, gaining distinction in both. In books, he is best known for the seven Moses Wine detective novels, which have won prizes in the U.S. and Great Britain and been published in over a dozen languages. In film, most prominent among his six produced screenplays-including his adaptation of The Big Fix-is Enemies, A Love Story, for which Simon was nominated for an Academy Award. The Straight Man is his fifth novel.