A 1990 Donald Westlake comedy-thriller about Jack Pine, a famous actor who recounts the story of his life during a police interrogation.
Tropes:
- Casting Couch: Jack slept with a male producer to get a role in a play after he was blackballed when his previous (female) patron died while having sex with him.
- Disposing of a Body: Jack puts Buddy's body in his car and tries to push it into the ocean. Unfortunately for Jack, he's so wasted that instead he disposes of the body and the car in his own swimming pool, and the murder is quickly discovered.
- Distinction Without a Difference: After Jack describes his Casting Couch incident:Detective O'Connor: You had sex with George Castelberry!Jack: Mostly, George had sex with me.
- How We Got Here: Jack recounts his life story while being questioned by Detective O’Connor (who he drunkenly mistakes for a reporter) about Buddy’s death.
- Improvised Weapon: Jack beats Buddy to death with his Oscar statue. When he sobers up enough to remember, he's horrified, not because he killed Buddy, but because he broke the Oscar.
- The Jeeves: Jack employs an unflappable British manservant and scrounger named Hoskins. Jack keeps trying to get him to play the part even more thoroughly, ordering him to say, "You bellowed, sir?" whenever Jack yells for him.
- Meaningful Name: Jack's best friend's real name is Buddy Pal. However, he's also a False Friend; sleeping with one of Jack's wives, blackmailing Jack over the accidental death of a high school classmate, and getting Hollywood Plastic Surgery to steal Jack's life.
- Noble Bigot with a Badge: Detective O'Connor is an honest man who shows a certain amount of patience and compassion as he builds up to arresting Jack. When he learns that Jack slept with another man, he reacts with "repugnance", although this doesn't affect the rest of their interactions.
- Put on a Prison Bus: The book ends with Jack telling Hoskins that he'll be back in approximately twelve years after he's arrested for drunkenly killing Buddy.
- Unreliable Narrator: Jack isn't a first-person narrator, but while describing his life, he skips over certain compromising events and imagines what happened in "scenes" he wasn't present for.
- You're Not My Type: A variant of this is done when Jack gets involved in a paternity suit when he is, in fact, innocent of impregnating (or even sleeping with) the woman. He wins the case by having his second wife and several past lovers in the courtroom stand up and then gesturing for the jury to look between them and the (relatively unattractive) plaintiff while emphasizing the disparity in their level of poise and sophistication. The jury rules in Jack's favor, but his wife (who he genuinely loves) divorces him, partially for this display of sexism.
