THE SEVENTH ROYALE

by Donald Stanwood ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 1986

Stanwood (The Memory of Eva Ryker, 1977) tells the story of how an automobile photographer's friendship with a dashing Italian race-car driver and their shared passion for Bugatti automobiles leads to an international search for a fabulous missing automobile (a hitherto unknown seventh Bugatti Royale)--a search that unearths scandals, revives old lusts, and scatters corpses all over the Rocky Mountain Time Zone. Alan Escher, a divorced cancer survivor whose life consists of photographing cars for the car biz and trading feeble quips with his crusty old female business partner, finds his life picking up a couple of thousand rpm when he gets a telegram from his old pal and fellow Bugatti fanatic, Elio Cezale. It seems that Cezale, the world-famous Italian race-car driver and former member of the Bugatti racing team, a man whom Escher rescued back in WW II and has stayed chums with ever since, is at last going to divorce his wife in Reno, and he wants Alan around for the ceremony. But just after their reunion and before the divorce can take place, Elio is intentionally run over by a graceless and vulgar Oldsmobile, and Alan finds himself in the thick of Elio's intrigues and family life, a tangled expressway junction full of Mormons, Nazis, Bugattis, automobile fanatics, and silent-film crews. Before he can hit the straightaway to the sunset with Elio's widow, Escher has to travel through oceans of Nazi Germany history at great risk to his own life. The Seventh Royale runs out of gas well before the finish line.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Atheneum

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1986

Categories: FICTION