The Revenge of Kali-Ra

Book excerpt: Nadia Wentworth is a Hollywood star. A big star. And she's so dreadfully bored on location in the South Pacific, she begins reading the first thing her assistant can dig up: a piece of gloriously bad pulp fiction by 1920s author Valerian Ricardo. Nadia soon falls under the spell of the bewitching Kali-Ra, the Queen of Doom, and knows she must portray the infamous character on the big screen. Ecstatic, she hires a famous British screenwriter to pen the script, and as word leaks out, all sorts of pests start popping up, including: Ricardo's great grandnephew; his elderly "wife"; his biographer, who also happens to be an illegitimate granddaughter; and a gaggle of obsessed Ricardo fans. When someone is murdered, there are scads of suspects, a multitude of motives, and much mayhem in this delightful, laugh-out-loud farce from one of the most accomplished novelists in the genre.