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Shakedown Beach

Name: Shakedown Beach
Author: Eric Dezenhall
ISBN: 9780312307738

by Eric Dezenhall

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Overview

The Governor: Gardner "Rebound" Rothman—-married, family values New Jersey Republican with White House fantasies, a terrible secret, and a controversial position on young interns: he's for 'em!

The Tart: Simone Lava, the voluptuous Miss Little Egg Harbor Township. Rebound keeps her hidden away in Atlantic City's seedy Celebrity Motel where she practices waving like a First Lady—-a title she's been promised, if she'll just lay low during election season.

The Fixer: Chief Willie Thundercloud, former pro wrestler who runs the Jersey Shore's most ruthless damage control firm. The chief digs up the macabre truth about the governor.

The Pollster: Jonah Eastman, maverick political strategist raised by his mobster grandfather, who gave Rebound his start. Jonah knows only one thing can save the congenitally deceitful governor: a whopping, heartfelt lie.

Shakedown Beach rips open the slats of the Atlantic City boardwalk to impart the big lesson of American politics: when forced to look into one's soul and confront the painful truths of murder, corruption, and sexual depravity, don't be an idiot—-hire the nastiest operatives money can buy and duck, dodge, and spin to November.

Synopsis

Time for a civics lesson—Jersey style. Jonah Eastman and Jackie Disaster team up for another in the series of Eric Dezenhall's acclaimed crisis manager mysteries.

The New York Times - Marilyn Stasio

Although none too subtle, Dezenhall's brash comic style suits his unkind -- not to say nasty -- depiction of Jersey politics as a lowdown contact sport. And there's real wit in the technically straight scenes in which Jonah preps his candidate for a press interview or puts a focus group through its paces. Here's proof that politics is funny when it isn't even trying.

About the Author, Eric Dezenhall

Eric Dezenhall is the co-founder of Dezenhall Resources, one of the nation's leading crisis management firms, and is the author of two novels, Money Wanders and Jackie Disaster, and the nonfiction study, Nail 'Em! Confronting High Profile Attacks on Celebrities and Businesses which has been optioned for TV. He lives in Bethesda, MD.

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Editorials

From the Publisher

"A cheeky political satire...Here's proof that politics is funny when it isn't even trying."

—-Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review

"Reads like a Carl Hiaasen novel hijacked from South Florida and plopped down in South Jersey...a well-observed thriller." —-The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Dezenhall's best so far...entertaining, a witty tale of twisted ambitions, buried skeletons, campaign chicanery and a thug who just might be descended from the Jersey Devil." —-Courier Post (New Jersey)

"Dezenhall is the most mordantly funny writer not named Westlake, with an ear for the zinger, a lie detector that makes mincemeat of politicians and spinmeisters, and the ability to plot like Machiavelli." —-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Marilyn Stasio

Publishers Weekly

Crisis management guru Dezenhall packs his second political mystery (after 2003's Jackie Disaster) with lots of action and plenty of colorful characters, like pollster Jonah Eastman, whose family connections to gangsters make it hard for him to get respectable work. Jonah is working for the Republican governor of New Jersey, Gardner Rothman, aka Rebound because of his stint with the Philadelphia 76ers. Rebound, who likes to hold meetings while he's sitting on the toilet, is running for a U.S. Senate seat and has a large lead in the polls. Yet he's begun acting as though he expects a bombshell to explode at any moment, and it's up to Jonah and Chief Willie Thundercloud, a onetime pro wrestler who now does damage control for several shady enterprises, to find out why. Dezenhall can write hilarious and brilliant descriptions, and can restate the obvious in fresh ways. "That Tappo's activities were illegal was of no matter because we were now living in the Arthur Andersen age of disclosure, where `trust' and `empowerment' in criminal endeavors were key to making the mob an instrument of social equity," Jonah says of a mobster known as Tappo the Clown. Sharp writing like that and some lively, unexpected plotting go a long way to making up for an excess of cute nicknames. Agent, Kris Dahl at ICM. (July 7) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A New Jersey election depends on which candidate put the body in the pine barrens and the graft in his pocket. The latest client for Jonah Eastman, the wry, self-deprecating pollster and grandson of Jewish gangster Mickey Price (Jackie Disaster, 2003, etc.), is Governor "Rebound" Rothman, running for the Senate and after staff interns, especially luscious Simone Lava, the former Miss Little Egg Harbor Township, now stashed in an Atlantic City motel. Keeping the lid on the film someone's making of the couple's kinky couplings isn't nearly as tough for Eastman as explaining Rebound's endorsement of riverboat gambling despite his shady commitments to shadier casino owners. What's behind the policy shift? What other hidden secrets are making Rebound worried about the election despite his big lead in the polls? And how can Eastman turn it all into anti-Swedish sentiment against Rothman's snobbish opponent while blackmailers, strong-armed pig farmers, and investigative reporter Barri Embry (a.k.a. Barium Enema) are watching, prying, snooping, and conniving? With the help of cockeyed-aphorism-spouting Chief Willie Thundercloud and nonagenarian Irv the Curve, his grandfather's "business" partner now resident in the Alter Kocker Arms, Eastman eventually disinters Rebound's dirty 30-year-old secrets, leaving the Senator-elect at the mercy of the New Jersey electorate. Dezenhall is the most mordantly funny writer not named Westlake, with an ear for the zinger, a lie detector that makes mincemeat of politicians and spinmeisters, and the ability to plot like Machiavelli. Agent: Kris Dahl/ICM