FOR THE DEATH OF ME

Blackstone vs. blackmail.

Oz Blackstone, international film star and indefatigable sleuth, is between films but never between cases (Alarm Call, 2005, etc.). Now the owner of “one of the most recognizable faces in the Western world,” smarmy Oz is contemplating his box-office smashes when once again villainy makes an entrance in the form of blackmail. The target: super-nice Harvey January, who’s married to Oz’s beloved sister Ellie. Harvey, the model of probity, is about to be named to the Supreme Court. But he wasn’t always so judicious, and his vindictive former wife Maddy has lurid photos to prove it. Unless he pays her off, she threatens exposure, scaring the daylights out of staid Harvey. Oz promises to deal with the ex–Mrs. January, but at the moment, neither he nor anyone else has any idea where she might be lurking. Undaunted—Oz is as impenetrably self-confident as he is self-approving—he launches a hunt that will involve Singapore, Malaysia, New York, Princeton University and Los Angeles. The case also involves a series of perfunctory murders, as well as that other Blackstone predilection: tomcatting.

A wispy plot whose presiding genius is a puffed-up bore. Oz’s ninth, with more no doubt to come.