The Manhattan Beach Project: A Novel

Barely four years after winning an Oscar Charlie has sunk into the ranks of Hollywood bottom-feeders -- reduced to living in his nephews pool house kiting checks and taking the bus to his weekly Debtors Anonymous meeting where he meets a mysterious ex-CIA agent who proposes to resuscitate Charlies foundering career -- in the beyond surreal world of reality TV.. Charlie puts his tap shoes on to sell a show about a ruthless Uzbek warlord and his family (think The Osbournes meets The Sopranos) to a rogue division of ABC known as ABCD which operates out of a skunkworks in Manhattan Beach California and whose mandate is to develop under top secret cover like that for the Manhattan Project extreme reality TV shows to bolster the networks ratings. . Warlord becomes a breakout hit and results not only in causing one of Americas largest entertainment conglomerates to go into full damage-control mode but also in shifting the balance of power in Central Asia and in proving that in show business its not over till the mouse sings.