Manifesto for the Dead  E-mail this product to a friend

MANIFESTO FOR THE DEAD tells the story of legendary crime writer Jim Thompson, as he makes his last stand in the decaying Aztec Hotel in Los Angeles, 1972. It is a book about desire and lust on the back lots of Hollywood, but MANIFESTO is also a novel-within-a-novel. It tells two stories that intertwine -- one set in California, one in Texas -- each rushing headlong into the other when Thompson finds a dead starlet in the trunk of an abandoned Cadillac. As the novel opens, the aging writer is at the end of his string. A habitue of Hollywood bars and fleabag hotels, it isn't long before he is approached to work on a project that will resurrect the career of a fading screen star. Thompson accepts, and soon finds himself at the center of a lurid triangle, following a trail that leads from the dead starlet to the bloody doorstep of one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood. MANIFESTO FOR THE DEAD is a surreal noir that takes as its main character the master of noir, the late crime novelist Jim Thompson at the end of his career, who suspects that he has been framed for murder. An intricate blend of biography, fiction, and suspense, this literary thriller offers a hair-raising portrait of one of crime fiction's most notorious true-life figures -- and a brutal satire of the entertainment industry in the tradition of The Day of the Locust. DOMENIC STANSBERRY is a two-time Edgar Award nominee and Hammett Prize finalist whose earlier books include THE LAST DAYS OF IL DUCE, THE SPOILER, and EXIT PARADISE. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.