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"The martini shot" is film slang for the wrap shot in a movie, the signal to strike the set and celebrate with a stiff drink. But aging action film star Charlie West doesn't need an occasion -- the empty booze bottles in Charlie's closet risk crowding out the skeletons. Little does Charlie know that salvation is on the way in the unlikeliest of forms.Matt Ravendahl, Charlie's illegitimate teenage son and an unforgettable character, is on his way to L.A. in search of acceptance from the father he never knew. When Matt reaches L.A. he must first overcome the doubts of his half sister, Ava, and soon the two form a memorable bond and a commitment to help Charlie confront his demons. With great elan, novelist Peter Craig shows how a family on the brink of dissolution reaches out and pulls together at the last possible moment. The novel's rollicking conclusion, a road trip that is part Beat generation, part National Enquirer, will leave readers cheering for more.

You just knew that someday, somehow, that old adage about books and their covers and the worthiness of judging them by such means would come in handy, didn't you? On its surface, The Martini Shot is just what its slick, twisted-celluloid-strip-in-a-cocktail-glass cover image touts it to be: a Hollywood novel. In addition, the young author and son of Sally Field takes his title from industry slang for the final sequence to be filmed in any production. Moving into the actual text, however, this specter doesn't loom so large. If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes industry leer in the style of Michael Tolkin, Michael Covino, or Bruce Wagner, you might look elsewhere. The Martini Shot is really as much of a dissection or indictment of Hollywood as Pinocchio is an exposé on puppetry. Rather than functioning as a raison d'être, Tinseltown is a backdrop for Craig's protagonists and their quests. So what's all the questing about? A couple of the usual suspects: love and self-knowledge. The author tosses in a paternity angle and adds the search for long-lost Dad to the pot. The result is not an overall success. Craig can occasionally come through with a keen observation on family dynamics, but he can also be distracted by jokes that take too long to set up, given the ultimate punch they pack, let alone the up-for-grabs issue of whether such clever one-liners belong anywhere near this particular tale of very wounded children and their very selfish parents. At its most on-track moments, The Martini Shot has a few worthy things to say about familial relations, but again, to throw it into the pile of recent Hollywood novels is quite likely to do both the novel and the reader a disservice. If you're looking for a dish fest on the film industry's particular brand of inexplicably alluring idiocy, you'll be better off searching elsewhere. If you're looking for plain ol' vanilla human idiocy, then you might have arrived at your destination. --Bob Michaels

Acknowledged as America s most popular suspense novelist (Rolling Stone ) and as one of today s most celebrated and successful writers, Dean Koontz has earned the devotion of millions of readers around the world and the praise of critics everywhere for tales of character, mystery, and adventure that strike to the core of what it means to be human. Now he delivers the page-turner of the season, an unforgettable journey to the heart of darkness and to the pinnacle of grace, at once chilling and wickedly funny, a brilliantly observed chronicle of good and evil in our time, of illusion and everlasting truth. He s Hollywood s most dazzling star, whose flawless countenance inspires the worship of millions and fires the hatred of one twisted soul. His perfectly ordered existence is under siege as a series of terrifying, enigmatic messages breaches the exquisitely calibrated security systems of his legendary Bel Air estate.The boxes arrive mysteriously, one by one, at Channing Manheim s fortified compound. The threat implicit in their bizarre, disturbing contents seems to escalate with each new delivery. Manheim s security chief, ex-cop Ethan Truman, is used to looking beneath the surface of things. But until he entered the orbit of a Hollywood icon, he had no idea just how slippery reality could be. Now this good man is all that stands in the way of an insidious killer and forces that eclipse the most fevered fantasies of a city where dreams and nightmares are the stuff of daily life. As a seemingly endless and ominous rain falls over southern California, Ethan will test the limits of perception and endurance in a world where the truth is as thin as celluloid and answers can be found only in the illusory intersection of shadow and light.Enter a world of marvelous invention, enchantment, and implacable intent, populated by murderous actors and the walking dead, hit men and heroes, long-buried dreams and never-dying hope. Here a magnificent mansion is presided over by a Scottish force of nature known as Mrs. McBee, before whom all men tremble. A mad French chef concocts feasts for the mighty and the malicious. Ming du Lac, spiritual adviser to the stars, has a direct line to the dead. An aptly named cop called Hazard will become Ethan s ally, an anarchist will sow discord and despair, and a young boy named Fric, imprisoned by celebrity and loneliness, will hear a voice telling him of the approach of something unimaginably evil. Traversing this extraordinary landscape, Ethan will face the secrets of his own tragic past and the unmistakable premonition of his impending violent death as he races against time to solve the macabre riddles of a modern-day beast.A riveting tour de force of suspense, mystery, and miraculous revelation, The Face is that rare novel that entertains, provokes, and uplifts at the same time. It will make you laugh. It will give you chills. It will fill you with hope.

Ten-year-old Aelfric Manheim is home alone when he receives a call from a stranger with a simple and terrifying message, "There is trouble coming, young Fric...You're going to need a place to hide." Meanwhile, security chief for the Manheim estate, former detective Ethan Truman, is tailing a "deader than dead" body that got up and left the morgue when he vividly experiences his own death--twice. In The Face, Dean Koontz delivers yet another spellbinding and chilling novel, where real and imagined monsters walk the streets, ghosts travel through mirrors, and the devil makes house calls. Stalked by both real and supernatural evil, the bright and sensitive Fric, virtually orphaned by his A-list Hollywood parents, and the brave but disillusioned former detective Ethan Truman, himself suffering from the loss of his wife, must rely on their wits and each other to escape a dark and disturbing fate. The supernatural lurks just beneath the surface of the "real" in Koontz's novels, and The Face is no exception. Ghosts, angels, demons, child predators and serial anarchists run rampant in Koontz's tale--the unsuspecting reader never knows what is real or imagined until the characters themselves know--creating a disorienting and frightening experience, and one that is vintage Koontz. Whether it be the real-life "agents of chaos" who roam the world creating mayhem and death or the phone lines that carry words of the dead to the living, this is Koontz at his most powerful and terrifying. In The Face, Koontz has created a modern fable for adults, taking the bones from tales of old and breathing new life into the characters. Clearly written for adults, The Face nevertheless channels the wit and wisdom of Aesop as well as the violence and villainy of the Brothers Grimm. While Koontz's penchant for elaborately singsong descriptions can be grating, ultimately it lends this tale its folkloric quality, i.e. "The June-bug jitter, scarab click, tumblebug tap of the beetle-voiced rain spoke at the window, click-click-click." In this fable, the world is a menacing and threatening place for adults and children alike, and the naïve and uninformed go trip-trapping through life with no notion of the trolls that lurk in the dark. The moral of this story is that, good or evil, you will get what is coming to you; it's up to you to succeed or fail for you alone decide your path punishment or redemption. --Daphne Durham