The Manhattan Beach Project: A Novel

Barely four years after winning an Oscar, Charlie has sunken into the ranks of Hollywood bottom-feeders. But one day at his weekly Debtors Anonymous meeting, he meets a mysterious ex-CIA agent who proposes to resuscitate Charlie’s foundering career in the beyond-surreal world of reality TV. Charlie puts his tap shoes on to sell a show about a ruthless Uzbek warlord and his family—“The Osbournes meets The Sopranos”—to a rogue division of ABC known as ABCD, whose mandate is to develop, under top-secret cover, extreme reality TV shows to bolster the network's ratings. When Warlord becomes a breakout hit, it not only sends one of America’s largest entertainment conglomerates into full damage-control mode but also shifts the balance of power in Central Asia, proving that in show business, it’s not over till the mouse sings.