From Publishers Weekly
Retired attorney Duffy author of seven Reuben Frost mystery novels under the pseudonym Haughton Murphy delivers a droll spoof of New York (city and state) political and social pretensions. Running against a Republican so disreputable that even Randilynn Foote, the somewhat shaky incumbent Republican governor, withholds her endorsement, Eldon Hoagland, a political science professor at Columbia, is elected mayor of New York City on the Democratic ticket. After a rather credible first year and a half in office, the highly intoxicated mayor departs a boozy reunion at the Fifth Avenue digs of his old Princeton roomie and is attacked and bitten after stepping on the leg of a pit bull urinating at the curb. His bodyguards shoot the animal as the dog's walker a hunky Albanian with an expired green card flees across Fifth Avenue into the bushes of Central Park. With no witnesses, the mayor decides to keep the incident mum. The dog's socially prominent owner, Sue Nation Brandberg, the mid-50-something Native American widow of a philanthropic billionaire, can't report the shooting to the authorities because of her houseboy lover's illegal status. Sue enlists the aid of the sleazy publisher of a British-owned tabloid newspaper to track down the culprits. When the story breaks, animal rights crusaders and the clergy join the fray. His Honor admits the truth, and all hell breaks loose. The governor, who resents Hoagland her former Columbia professor because he once gave her a B-minus, seizes the opportunity for revenge, only to discover that vengeance can be a two-edged sword. This erudite comedy of errors is the equivalent of Damon Runyon in white tie and tails.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
In a broad political satire that reflects the tone though not the text of today's tabloid headlines, we are told of the meteoric rise and equally abrupt fall of a political career. Eldon Hoagland, highly regarded Columbia professor of political science, is seduced by the praise of powerful friends to run for mayor of New York. The birth of his candidacy, his successful run, and the first 18 months of his administration all happen in 30 pages--and the rest of the novel focuses on his downfall. Was it deep corruption, drug use, or sexual impropriety that brought him down? No, after indulging in too much scotch at an old friend's apartment, the mayor steps on a dog as he leaves; dog bites mayor, bodyguard shoots dog, and now are sown the seeds of the mayor's downfall. To follow his decline requires the reader to pursue an incredibly tangled and exaggerated send-up of politicians, muckrakers, animal activists, and their ilk, all with enough truth to make us wonder about the world we live in.
Danise HooverCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
