DEBUT John Doe, host of a highly successful TV show on food and travel, accidentally dies while self-pleasuring in a Belfast hotel room, setting off a desperate scramble among those in his circle to hide the truth, thus preserving both Doe’s reputation and their own incomes. Unfortunately, after Doe was discovered by his friend the celebrity chef Paolo Cabrini, hotel bellhop Charlie McCree wandered into the room and took a picture—which could destroy everything if made public. Doe thinks it will be simple to buy a simple man’s silence, but Charlie proves an enigma; he’s never clear about what it would take to keep him quiet. Things get bad when Charlie shows up in New York, taking up residence in Paolo’s swanky apartment and wreaking havoc wherever he goes. Even worse, a mostly fictitious article by web journalist Katie Horatio goes viral and turns a tiny restaurant (where Doe never went) into a shrine to his memory—and a launching pad for Horatio’s own ambitions.
VERDICT Taking the death of Anthony Bourdain as a jumping-off point, this bitingly satiric tale examines the mix of greed and reverence that drives people who have something to gain or to protect. Boyd is the pen name of journalists Kevin Alexander and Joe Keohane and editor Alessandra Lusardi, publishing their first novel.
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