Corrupting Dr. Nice

August Faison and his gorgeous young daughter Genevieve are rogues of the first water—seasoned swindlers who rove across time in search of new victims to fleece. Now the most precious pigeon of the all has fallen into their laps, in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus.Dr. Owen Vannice is far too unworldly and far too rich for his own good. A fabulously wealthy paleontologist who has just spent the last year, not to mention billions of the family fortune, doing research in the Cretaceous period, he now finds himself stranded in the Holy City with a rapidly growing baby dinosaur in tow.Simon is a disillusioned disciple whose master has been kidnapped uptime by colonists from the future. Now he works for the exploitative crosstime corporation which has turned his timeline into a tourist trap, complete with luxury hotels and junkets to countless versions of the Crucifixion.When a desperate act of sabotage brings them all together, their lives are drastically transformed, for Genevieve is falling in love with "Dr. Nice" against her better judgment, and is even willing to double-cross her father to protect him. But even that isn't enough, for Dr. Nice is losing his innocence, while Simon and his revolutionary zealots seek to drive out the invaders from the future.Skillfully interweaving screwball comedy with the paradoxes of time travel and satirical social commentary, Corrupting Dr. Nice is, in the tradition of its Hollywood forbears, a love story, one that is at the same time serious and funny, sweet-natured and cynical—sophisticated speculative fiction by an award-winning modern master."Lucid, humane, and mercilessly funny, Corrupting Dr. Nice is a peach. If there could be great date books like there are great date movies, this would be one. Dr. Kessel's self-deceiving lovers strive against a painstakingly realized social backdrop—in this case, one that also happens to be the ultimate metaphor for post-modernism. Brilliant." —Jonathan Lethem"Brilliantly intelligent, light-handed, and warm-hearted—a dazzler." —Ursula K. Le Guin"Time travel yarns have been a science fiction staple since the early days of the genre, but have worn a bit thin in recent years. Now John Kessel breathes new life into the sub-genre with his latest novel. Corrupting Dr. Nice follows a pair of hapless lovers from ancient Jerusalem to the twenty-first century in a deft homage to the 1941 Preston Sturges romantic comedy, The Lady Eve. Like Sturges, Kessel uses his deluded characters' antics as a vehicle for wicked observations on media saturation, consumer culture, and postmodern looniness . . . Corrupting Dr. Nice is suffused with gentle good humor. Kessel treats his characters with warmth and compassion even while he's putting them through the wringer." —The San Francisco Chronicle