Let's All Kill Constance

On a dismal evening, an unnamed writer in Venice, California, answers a furious pounding at his beachfront bungalow door -- and once again admits a dangerous icon into his life. Constance Rattigan, an aging, once-glamorous Hollywood star, stands soaked and shivering in his foyer, clutching two anonymously delivered books that have sent her running in fear from something she dares not acknowledge: twin lists of the Tinseltown dead and soon-to-be dead . . . with Constance's name included among them. And, just as suddenly, she vanishes into the stormy night, leaving the narrator with her macabre "gifts" and an unshakable determination to get to the root of the actress's grand terror. So begins an odyssey as dark as it is wondrous, as the writer sets off in a broken-down jalopy with his irascible sidekick, Crumley, to sift through the ashes of a bygone Hollywood. But a world that once sparkled with larger- than-life luminaries -- Dietrich, Valentino, Harlow -- is now a graveyard of ghosts and secrets. Each twisted road our heroes travel leads to grim shrines and shattered dreams -- a remote cabin where history is preserved in mountains of yellowed newsprint; a cathedral where sinners hold sway; a forgotten projection booth where the past lives eternally on in an endless loop of cinematic youth and beauty. And always the road turns back to lost filmdom's temple, a fading movie palace called Grauman's Chinese, and to the murky hidden catacombs beneath. Prepare yourself for a mystery as enthralling as the most well-crafted whodunit; a satire as keen as the edge of a straight razor, a phantasmagoric celebration of a lost world built on equal parts dream and nightmare -- the latest fantastic flight of glorious imagination by Ray Bradbury, the one and only.

About the Author :
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. An Emmy Award winner for his teleplay The Halloween Tree and an Academy Award nominee, he was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.

Review :
"Ray Bradbury's writing remains as rich and ripe as ever." - Washington Post Times-Herald "Bradbury remains a conjurer." - Time magazine "Ray Bradbury remains a master storyteller, and his writing still cracks my hat." - Chicago Tribune "An irresistible tale which will be in demand, since it's only Bradbury's second novel since 1963. " - Library Journal "Pleasantly weird...it seems 'life' and 'death' are relative terms in a world where the only lasting death is being forgotten." - New York Times Book Review "This book is more about mood than plot, raising larger questions of identity while providing loving descriptions of crepuscular Hollywood landmarks...recommended for all ...those in love with long-ago Hollywood and its lost souls." - Library Journal "Madness, blackmail, murder and mayhem spell tricks and treats as Bradbury toes the fine line between reality and illusion." - Publishers Weekly "With postmodern panache, Bradbury draws attention to the fact that we are reading fiction...[Bradbury's] hilarious knack for literalizing the figurative shows itself at its finest." - Los Angeles Times "[Let's All Kill Constance] is a meditation on the eruptions of old age, on memory and on failed and realized aspirations. . . Bradbury ... is so engaging in part because he lacks pretensions." - Chicago Tribune "Bradbury, a legend in his own time, seems never to run out of creative inspiration. [Let's All Kill Constance] is a loving, tongue-in-cheek tribute to early Hollywood. . . [a] whirlwind of staccato dialogue, puns and references to old Hollywood and Chandler-era noir. Bradbury's giddy pleasure is infectious." - Publishers Weekly "SF legend Bradbury miraculously produces a solution that honors both the mystery formula and his own deeper roots in fantasy." - Kirkus Reviews