Turnpike Flameout

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When a private jet crashes in the New Jersey Pine Barrens on the Fourth of July, the search begins for faded rock and roller Turnpike Bobby Chin. The singer suspiciously survives and turns up wandering in the haunted woods. Soon after, a celebrity sculptor vanishes after unveiling his unflattering statue of the star. The cops say it’s homicide, and make plans to bust Turnpike Bobby.

But hair-trigger Bobby isn’t the kind of guy who does time. He’s the kind who gets away with murder.

When the media circus begins, gangland-bred pollster Jonah Eastman is hired to devise a "P.A.S." (Plausible Alternative Scenario) for the sculptor’s death. But then a beautiful au pair vanishes from Atlantic City, and it’s all the media want to talk about — not Bobby, which pisses Bobby off because he hasn’t gotten this much attention since the Reagan Administration. As he works to vindicate Bobby, Jonah enters the inner sanctum of the celebrity icon, a world so seductive and lethal that Jonah waxes nostalgic for his days working for the Mafia.

Turnpike Flameout is a black comic ride through the underbelly of mega-stardom and the spin employed by handlers to ensure that crime pays — quite well, actually.