Miss Gazillions

Miss Gazillions is very commedia dell'arte: a fast and funny, pure improvisation from an impudent and saucy author. Centuries ago in a former life Weber had to run an elaborate puppet theater in a motley smart-mouthed Italian city on the hilarious side of the Renaissance. Everything necessary for pure farce gets flung without pity at these thoroughly modern characters, who happily walk the gamut from glittering boobious babe to glittering defrocked Roman cardinal. A happily hapless narrator tries to make pro forma sense of it all via the best aspect of the book: the street parade of one-liners that come haywire from some epigram machine in the sky. Nothing stays in one place for more than a New York minute.

Twenty years ago, Dan O'Sullivan, Jr. was doing field work in the Caribbean when he decided not to return to school and remain in the sun and fun. His father, a Brooklyn construction firm owner supported his son's lifestyle until he died and his estate turns out to be bankrupt. The Star Ace Corporation repossesses Dan's ship but also provides him a job as a Brooklyn property supervisor. Dan meets his father's last mistress, Lydia Sands who informs him that he owns the coffin until he earns the money to bury it in Caribbean. Tenant Celeste Tranor comes home late one night looking battered and her apartment was trashed. The news reports that a late night traffic accident led to the deaths of the Secretary of Treasury, a former Attorney General, and a drug kingpin; the chauffeur claims there was also a female passenger who vanished. Celeste admits that is she and shows Dan gazillions of dollars and proposes they cut a 60-40 deal to escape town with while thugs want the loot and examples made of Celeste and her "spouse". MISS GAZILLIONS is a zany wacky thriller that never slows down from the moment Dan becomes involved with the two eccentric females until the wild finish. Dan is a terrific protagonist albeit a weak person when it comes to the females who have changed his life as much as acclimating to Brooklyn after two decades at sea in the Caribbean. Celeste and Lydia are intriguing protagonists and the audience will get a kick out of mobster Tony Dee's pickup service. Richard Weber has provided a zany tale where ethics is someone else's problem. Harriet Klausner

Miss Gazillions is my sort of read. Fast paced, vivid descriptions of some of my favorite places in both the new and old worlds. Zany situations that ring true with delightful characters and dialogue. One could hope for both a series and a movie. What a kick to cast the Cardinal, Lydia, Celeste and O'Sullivan. Weber writes as I wish I could write. I read his Homeland last year and it is hard to imagine the same person being able to create such completely different worlds. Enjoy!