The (Something) Burlesque: Synopsis

An hour later I was sitting at my desk, blinking at the computer monitor, my sweat-soaked hands hovering above the keyboard. My nose was bleeding and there was a rubber ball in my mouth, kept in place by duct tape stretched across my bloody lips. Milton stood behind me, the barrel of his gun pressed against the back of my head. “If you don’t come up with something halfway decent soon, I’ll empty your head all over the room, you useless hack,” he said, then backhanded me over the ear. “You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

Michael Sherwood, author of the most unsuccessful novel ever published, has an idea for a new book: it’s not a good idea. It’s about a guy who kills celebrities. That’s it. All too soon much of what happens in the book begins coming true out in the world, beginning with the death of a popular television actor at the hands of the novel’s main character, the charismatic but unfortunately deeply homicidal Milton Sabian. It’s prosopopeia out of control, and it’s only the beginning. When fifty-three of Hollywood’s brightest stars are snuffed out in one fell swoop – and as a stunned and horrified world accepts Milton’s unique provenance – both author and character are put on trial for celebricide.

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