Title: Putting on the Ritz Author: Joe Keenan Published by: Viking, 1991 ISBN: 0-670-83877-2 [hardcover, 325 pages]
Elsa Champion, a would-be chanteuse and so rich "she ovulates Faberge eggs," is planning her singing debut at the Rainbow Room. She wants some original songs, and Gilbert Selwyn can wangle the lucrative assignment for Philip Cavanaugh (once they were briefly lovers but now they are best friends when not best enemies) and his songwriting partner, Claire Simmons -- the long-suffering voice of reason in this madcap trio. Of course, there are problems. The talentless Elsa and her husband -- widely detested real-estate mogul, publisher, and media glutton Peter Champion -- are the kind of couple who make the Borgias look Amish. Hard people to work for. Harder still if you're also spying on them, as Philip is doing in order to give Gilbert the dope for a scalding expose of Champion's shady business practices.Gilbert is penning this bombshell for Boyd Larkin, the flamboyant magazine publisher and Champion's bitterest rival ever since he described Champion's architectural style as "Albert Speer Goes to Las Vegas." The battle between Larkin and Champion, though, is nothing compared to the war of wits that blossoms between Philip and Gilbert as they vie for the affections of Tommy parker, Larkin's paralyzingly suave editor in chief.
The characters' ever more elaborate plots and counterplots intersect in unforeseeable ways, finally exploding during Elsa's fabulous Rainbow Room debut. And in the sensational aftermath of that historic performance, our heroes find themselves playing a new and more perilous game, one they feel certain they can win -- if only the rules would stop changing.
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