A late-night TV executive falls to his death, and Blissberg must crack the case before the killer has the last laughWhen Harvey Blissberg is hired by Roy Ganz, the pretentious, pint-size producer of a legendary but fading late-night network comedy show, he has no idea that he’s about to walk right into a television tragedy. The private eye thinks he’s doing a short, easy job by dragging a missing guest host out of a Times Square bar. The show goes well but just as the cast and crew start to celebrate, Ganz exits a twenty-fourth floor window, plunging faster than his show’s ratings. Hastily hired by the network to conduct a discreet investigation, Blissberg slowly makes his way through the show’s ragtag roster of writers and actors, many of who would have relished a chance to defenestrate their manipulative boss. The joke’s on Blissberg, however, when he’s forced to make an unexpected detour back to the early days of television.
<p>R. D. Rosen has written or coauthored numerous books spanning different genres—from an Edgar Award-winning mystery novel to narrative nonfiction, including <em>Psychobabble</em> (a word he coined in 1975) and <em>A Buffalo in the House</em>. He has appeared as a humorist and satirist on PBS, HBO, and NPR's <em>All Things Considered</em>.</p>