Daniel Klein

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The King Hits Hollywood!Just finished with the shooting of Kissin' Cousins-and fresh from a headline-making affair with the sizzling Ann-Margret-Elvis Aron Presley is at one devilish crossroads. Should he choose glittering Hollywood, or the temptations of Graceland? Keep making lucrative bad movies, or go back to doing the music he loves? His search for the truly good script that can mean the best of both worlds only creates more chaos between his ruthlessly scheming manager and the industry powerbrokers who won't take him seriously. Elvis is convinced that he's forever trapped in one hell-bound bargain. . .But when a fellow ex-soldier swears he's been wrongly convicted of killing a beautiful starlet, Elvis finds far worse trouble. To uncover the truth, he'll have to search the dark corners beyond Hollywood's bright-hot lights and confront the savage triple-dealing and lethal performances at the real heart of movieland. And only with the help of a discredited defense lawyer, a brilliant Mexican pathologist far ahead of his time, and a skeptical L.A. Times reporter, will Elvis have a prayer of finding the real killer and saving an innocent man's life.From Publishers WeeklyWhat intrigues most about Klein's treatment of the rock-and-roll icon in this appealing follow-up to Kill Me Tender (2000) is the King's moral center. Belying his image as a jaded, drugged-out corrupter of traditional American values, Klein's Elvis is a man drawn to criminal investigation and the dark side of the human psyche by his abiding purity of heart. This Elvis understands that the pursuit of justice may require confronting perversity, brutality and the gross abuse of power especially in Hollywood. As the shoot for Presley's 1963 film Kissin' Cousins winds down, Elvis hears from a fellow G.I., now serving a life sentence for murder in a California pen. Drawn into the case, Elvis teams with the has-been lawyer, now full-time alcoholic, who defended the accused in the original trial. Not incidentally, this diversion enables Elvis to slip the clutches of the suffocating Colonel Parker his longtime, anything-for-a-buck manager and rid his mouth of the profound distaste he feels for another in an unending series of slapdash movies and their treacly soundtracks. While Hollywood's fetid underside has been done countless times, accompanying Elvis on his own journey into the abyss affords new pleasures along with the tried-and-true (e.g., ruthless moguls exploiting would-be starlets). Klein unobtrusively renders Elvis's early foray into painkillers, makes convincing Elvis's discovery of Freud and describes an impromptu concert in a way that reminds us what made Presley the astonishing artistic force that he was. (Mar. 16)Forecast: Faithful to the Elvis of Peter Guralnick's exhaustive two-volume biography, Klein should continue to build up his base among Presley fans. According to the supermarket tabloids, Presley himself called from a phone booth "somewhere in the Midwest" to say he was "tickled pink" with the author's portrayal. Klein's Elvis would seem a natural for a series of made-for-TV movies.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.From Library JournalAn old army buddy, jailed in 1963 for the murder of a Hollywood starlet, appeals to Elvis for help. Despite personal problems of his own, including his romance with Ann-Margaret, allegations regarding the death of his French mistress, and the remarriage of his father, Elvis sleuths. An entertaining sequel to Kill Me Tender. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.