Vanity Fire (Guy Mallon Mysteries)

Welcome to the survival story of a small niche publisher who gets hung out to dry by would-be vanity book publishers. All they have is aprint-on-demand machine and some clueless clients.It's a simple scam with a big payoff. For $20,000 up front a newly-minted publisher will print one book for the author, using a computer savvy porn star to format the manuscript and her friend to help with packaging and mailing. Then it's bye-bye-birdie. The publisher changes mailing addresses constantly so no angry author canfind him.Protagonist Guy Mallon owns a legitimate business publishing poetry. Doesn't make much money but loves his work and has a spotless reputation. Before he knows what hit him, he has sold his soul to three different people. One is a slippery blowhard. One is an out-and-out crook. One is a western movie star who will bail Guy outof debt in return for one printed, bound copy of his autobiographical poems.Daniel's characters use some expressions I'm going to steal. When the owner of a torched building says, "I don't give a French-fried fart ..." I had to put the book down to laugh without spilling coffee. I lead asheltered life. Never heard that expression before.Guy is a likeable character and an amateur sleuth purely by accident. He's five feet tall. The author uses that height with wit and humor, almost as if height is mainly in Guy's mind. As his lover tells him, "You're going to have to give up being short."The ending leaves the door open for a sequel, but VANITY FIRE would be a hard act to follow. I loved every page.

Guy Mallon is perfectly content running his small publishing company with his business partner and lover Carol Murphy. Trouble comes to the happy couple when retired businessman Fritz Marburger offers to pay them to publish his young lover's book. The author is fancy jazz singer Lorraine Evans. Once Carol and Guy read it, they believe they have a hit on their hands. Marburger is Lorraine's agent and together they set up a publicity scenario where the singer appears on Oprah and does a spread in People.When Lorraine nixes the People article and refuses to go on Oprah, sales plummet. The warehouse that Guy rents from Marburger to store the books inside also has a tenant, Roger, who is running a POD scam and making a fortune. Carol leaves Guy who in order to avoid bankruptcy; he goes in on the POD scam with one of his authors. The warehouse burns down and all his books are gone. The police determine the cause of the fire is arson and a body is found in the ruins. Roger has disappeared and Guy intends to find him and earn back his self esteem that he lost by dealing with a criminal.John M. Daniel has written an adrenaline racing, heart bumping crime caper that has so many interesting plot twists that readers really don't have a clue who besides Roger is the antagonist. What this reviewer likes about VANITY FIRE is that nobody can predict what will happen next. This leads to a one sitting reading to find out how Guy's problem all turn out.Harriet Klausner

Diminutive Guy Mallon runs a small press firm with his partner Carol Murphy in picturesque Santa Barbara, California. Guy agrees to accept payment from Fritz Marburger to publish singer Lorraine Evans' novel. Fritz, a pushy and shady character, lets it slip that Lorraine's novel might be autobiographical, and the news media swarms her. Upset, Lorraine decides she wants out of the deal.Guy is left facing debt and paying the rent on a huge warehouse, not to mention the stacks of unsold books. Then his warehouse burns and a dead body is discovered inside it. This is all told to us tongue-in-cheek by the crusty, affable Guy. And how can you not like Guy? He owns an enviable collection of first-edition poetry volumes and has a big heart to boot. But his judgment sometimes isn't the wisest or most practical. A briskly paced mystery, VANITY FIRE is more of a caper about Guy working his way out of a jam with the help of his many equally colorful friends. A fun read.