ANY GIVEN MOMENT

There's buoyant fun in Van Wormer's (Benedict Canyon, 1992, etc.) shrewd look at the publishing industry in which—after much splashing around—the little fish manages to swallow the big fish. Hillings & Hillings, the finest literary agency in New York, realizes it's under siege when L.A.-based entertainment megaglomerate International Communications Artists impounds their offices after a merger. Gentle, kind (and aged) Dorothy and Henry Hillings are agents from another era—they care about literature and authors—to whom this kind of corporate behavior is unthinkable and upsetting. When the shock of it gives Dorothy a heart attack, Henry takes her to their Long Island manse to recuperate. While she does, Henry and dowager author Millicent Parks prepare for a counterattack by alerting the agency's loyal clients. Authors race to New York from England, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New Jersey, forming a trusty band that swoops into action to defend the Hillingses from evil adversary Creighton Berns, ICA's new CEO. But Berns is a power broker who could damage the careers of several Hillings & Hillings clients with ties to the entertainment industry: Georgiana Hamilton-Ayres, a movie star who lived with the Hillingses as a child; David Aussenhoff, author turned playboy producer; Elizabeth Robinson, an academic who also appears on PBS; Patty Kleczak, suburban housewife and first-time novelist; and Montgomery Grant Smith, a fat but loveable conservative talk-radio personality. When not bickering and sleeping with one another, the plucky gang finds a little time to sleuth and spy on ICA; this is as much a comedy of manners as a thriller. The denouement may be of more interest to industry insiders than others, since it hinges on copyright law and subsidiary rights to an out-of-print book. A novel about warm agents who care and their loyal, altruistic authors: Shelve this as science fiction.