BRAIN CAMP

First Second – August 3, 2010

Neither artistic, dreamy Jenna nor surly, delinquent Lucas expected to find themselves at an invitation-only summer camp that turns problem children into prodigies. And yet, here they both are at Camp Fielding, settling in with all the other losers and misfits who’ve been shipped off by their parents in a last-ditch effort to produce a child worth bragging about.

But strange disappearances, spooky lights in the woods, and a chilling alteration that turns the dimmest, rowdiest campers into docile zombie Einsteins have Jenna and Lucas feeling more than a little suspicious . . . and a lot afraid.

Praise for BRAIN CAMP

YALSA 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novel for Teens

From its shock opening right out of a horror movie, this graphic novel sets the scene for an old-fashioned scare story. Kim and Klavan, who balanced adventure and kid’s social issues so well in City of Spies (2010), do the same in another well-rounded adventure here, as the far-out (and kind of gross) climax mixes with genuine insight into dealing with parents, fitting into a new crowd, and handling the pressures of performance. Hicks’ line work is cool enough to assuage older readers who might be suspicious of the summer-camp setting.“—Booklist

“Kim and Klavan offer a sly social commentary with a fizzy dash of stomach-lurching horror. Hicks’s chunky art goes to town with the revolting possibilities. Smart, disgusting fun.“—Kirkus

CITY OF SPIES

First Second – April 27, 2010

By Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, and Pascal Dizin

Mystery, intrigue, and pastries abound in this World War II spy tale.

Evelyn typically satisfies her longing for adventure with the help of a pencil and a sheet of paper. But when she makes a new friend, Tony, she’s happy to abandon her art for a real-life search for spies. When the two accidentally uncover a genuine mystery, it looks like Evelyn might end up in the kind of adventure she writes in her comics!

Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, and Pascal Dizin present a period piece that creates an inviting world you won’t want to resist.

Praise for CITY OF SPIES

“Kim and Klavan put a sophisticated spin on classic boys’ adventure story elements and handle issues of friendship, economic class, and abandonment. And with villains and danger that just border on the genuinely scary, the tale is filled not only with a thrilling sense of excitement but also with a child’s longing for a grown-up to believe in.“—Booklist, Starred Review

“[City of Spies], told with seat-of-the-pants, graphic-novel immediacy, is an artful melding of jewel-box illustration with noir atmosphere—Tintin directed by Hitchcock. The snappy, uncluttered tale has arousing visual flow and plot depth on a variety of fronts.“—Kirkus Reviews

“[City of Spies] is truly a beautiful, moving book. For both Young Adults and Old ones. Five out of five time-traveling zeppelin savers.“—Comic Book Resources

“A strong book…Engaging…the tale has an authentic feel which brings the historical setting to life.“—School Library Journal

THE SHOOTING SCRIPT

Ballantine Books – March 1, 2005

Following his critically acclaimed novel The Cutting Room, Laurence Klavan returns with The Shooting Script. Establishing shot: New York City, present day. Zoom in on a run-down tenement building, somewhere west of Times Square, the home of Roy Milano, a thirtyish, divorced typesetter who lives for the movies. In fact, by pursuing the legendary uncut print of Orson Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons, Roy has become something of a minor celebrity among the fellow misfit film fanatics he caters to in his homemade newsletter, Trivial Man. But there’s nothing trivial when Roy’s old rival Abner Cooley shows up with a check in his hand and the words “Someone is trying to kill me” on his lips.

With his mother ailing, Roy needs the money as badly as Cooley needs someone to head off a trigger-happy stalker who’s determined to put both him and his controversial new screenplay into permanent turnaround. And though Roy does his best, like many a private eye before him, he quickly finds his head turned by an enticing distraction. Not a femme fatale, but a flick.

Roy is all but powerless to resist an e-mail from a mysterious fan that lures him with the promise of an elusive treasure as fiercely sought after by the celluloid cognoscenti as the Ark of the Covenant was by Indiana Jones. It’s Jerry Lewis’ famous unreleased drama, The Day the Clown Cried. But when he arrives at a rendezvous too late to save a dying man, Roy realizes he’s stumbled into a dangerous race to possess a piece of cinema history. To catch up, he’ll have to match wits with a rogues’ gallery: a bored and bitter superstar comedian, a hot-shot producer turned drugged-out has-been, a ferocious German actor who likes to role-play off-camera, a mercurial director with a scary sense of humor, and a hard-bitten cop who’s mad about movies.

Meanwhile, Roy will be tempted by the wiles of three fetching females—and tormented by a single-minded psychopath with more faces than Lon Chaney. He’ll even go on location, pursuing and being pursued from the mansions of the Hamptons to the harbors of Maine, the boulevards of L.A. to the canals of Amsterdam. No one’s ever gone to this much trouble just to see a movie. But for Roy, the reward far outweighs the risk. And a chance to glimpse the Big Picture might just be worth coming face-to-face with the Big Sleep.

Praise for THE SHOOTING SCRIPT

“A gratifying ending drops the curtain on this wholly entertaining sequel: a frenzied encore for suspense fans and an edifying indulgence for seasoned film buffs.”—Publishers Weekly

“Hard-boiled nerd Roy Milano is back is another screwball adventure…Enough delightful insanity to please fans of silly suspense (from Jonathan Lethem to Kinky Friedman).”—Booklist

“Another madcap adventure for the self-described ‘trivial man’…with a cast and crew of zanies.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A sparkling, fast-paced jewel of a novel.“—Katherine Neville, author of The Eight

THE CUTTING ROOM
A Novel of Suspense

Ballantine Books – February 3, 2004

Like the hero in a classic Hitchcock thriller, the innocent movie buff at the center of this witty and suspenseful novel finds his ordinary life suddenly transformed when he’s plunged into a harrowing game of intrigue, duplicity, and danger. Spurred into a frantic race from New York to Hollywood to Barcelona and back, he’ll encounter enough hairpin twists, shocking surprises, white-knuckle tension, and sinister characters to give even the master of suspense himself a serious case of vertigo. But in this scenario, the mayhem and murder are all too real.

Self-proclaimed movie geek and divorced thirty-something Roy Milano lives alone in a cramped Manhattan apartment, toiling as a freelancer to make ends meet. It’s a life perfectly suited to the creator of Trivial Man, Roy’s self-published newsletter—filled with tidbits of little-known Tinseltown lore for the delight of other fringe-dwelling cinemaphiles. And it’s a tantalizing phone call from one such kindred spirit that thrusts Roy headlong into his waking noir nightmare.

“I’ve got The Magnificent Ambersons,” declares Alan Gilbert, host of a homemade cable-TV show about the silver screen, who now claims to possess the rarest of the rare: the long-lost and never-released complete print of Orson Welles’s classic follow-up to Citizen Kane. But when Roy arrives at his fellow movie maven’s abode to sneak a peek at celluloid history, the front door is ominously open, Alan Gilbert is dead, and The Magnificent Ambersons is nowhere in sight. Even though the cops arrest a local drug addict for the murder, Roy knows they’re wrong—because the theft of the movie masterpiece points to a different kind of junkie. The kind Roy knows only too well . . . and the kind he’s certain only he can catch.

But Roy Milano is no Sam Spade, even if he does run into more gun-toting goons, sucker punches, and double-crosses than Bogey on a busy day. And the suspects prove to be anything but usual—including a bodybuilding film fanatic obsessed with bizarre rumors about an A-list actress, a rotund reporter who holds Hollywood in thrall via red-hot Internet dispatches from his parents’ basement, and a starstruck street punk with a thousand voices. And then there’s the transatlantic love triangle that finds Roy caught between his very own eager Gal Friday and a sultry Spanish siren with a stunning secret. But when the bodies start to fall faster than a box-office bomb, Roy must cut to the chase in his perilous quest to save the Holy Grail of cinema—and unmask a killer—before everything fades to black.

Praise for THE CUTTING ROOM

“A lightning-paced, high-concept thriller . . . Astonishingly inventive, The Cutting Room stands out as one of the best mysteries of the year!”—Tess Gerritsen, author of The Sinner

“In 1984, writing under the pseudonym Margaret Tracy, Klavan won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original for Mrs. White. Now—two decades later and best known as the librettist for the Obie Award-winning musical Bed and Sofa—Klavan has produced this wry, whimsically romantic crime novel. Brimming with engaging tidbits of movie trivia, it is narrated in the self-effacing voice of its bumbling, endearing hero, Roy Milano, publisher of Trivial Man, a cultish movie trivia newsletter sold through bookstores and video outlets around the Big Apple. . . This tongue-in-cheek whodunit marks the long overdue second coming of a gifted novelist.“—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

“A great bit of escapism for film and mystery buffs alike. . . Klavan’s touch is playful and deft.“—Booklist

“Klavan gleefully slices and dices every known specimen of the Hollywood film trade. . . . Worth its weight in popcorn.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Highly entertaining . . . Klavan knows his turf. . . . Sure to put a smile on any movie buff’s lips.”—Leonard Maltin