MAYDAY (Revised 2003)

"Joanna is in desperate need of $10,000, now or soon. No holds barred." Ernest Mayday, a best-selling British author living in a Hollywood Hills mansion with a beautiful masseuse, has everything that money can buy - except an idea for his next book. Then he replies to the personal ad placed by the mysterious, tantalizing Joanna. She needs money, fast, and will do anything to get it. Compromising a juror on a major fraud trial is just the beginning of an increasingly labyrinthine plot - a plot that Ernest realizes will make the perfect novel. But is Ernest observer or voyeur? When does fact end and fiction begin? What is the truth about the Reverend Abel Pile and the sinister Angel of Darkness? Suddenly Ernest finds he is no longer calling the shots - and the bullets are real! What writers and critics have said about MAYDAY: "With a keen eye for satire, British novelist Lynn skewers Hollywood, religion, the creative arts and science. Successful British expat novelist Ernest Mayday thinks his biggest problem is a serious case of writer´s block as the deadline for his new novel looms. Not the fact that his girlfriend Randi devotes most of her time (and money) to Rev. Abel Pile´s Church of the Community of Personal Truth, a cause-like all other matters of religion-for which Mayday has no use, especially since he thinks the good reverend is probably more con artist than man of the cloth. And not the fact that Randi wants to get married while Mayday sees no benefit to himself-a deal is a deal, marriage included. He finds sudden creative inspiration though a newspaper ad that catches his eye: A woman claims she needs $10,000, “no holds barred.” And so he makes her an offer she can´t refuse: He´ll match the money she makes on whatever other offer she accepts as long as she reports whatever happens back to him, giving him a plot for his new book. What commences is a twisting tale of blackmail, criminal prosecution and jury-tampering, high-stakes Hollywood deals and unrequited love and lust that barrels into a risky yet surprisingly rewarding conclusion… The novel, although first published in the UK in 1993 and revised and edited for publication in the US, holds up well 15 years later. Mayday´s crises and commentary remain fresh. Lynn, author of "Yes, Minister" and creator and co-writer of the BBC series based on that and other books, has a cinematic writing style that lends itself well to the story and substance of the book. A multilayered comic romp." - Kirkus Review “Jonathan Lynn, with his marvelous sense of the comic and his artist’s eye for detail, and with MAYDAY he has spun an unforgettable portrait of the exotic denizens of LA. -- engrossing, scathingly funny, original.” - Oliver Sacks "It is several satirical novels for the price of one, all jostling and milling and spraying their targets with unrestrained vigor." - The Times Literary Supplement. "Very funny... will keep you turning the pages right to the surprising end." - Eric Idle “The funniest novel I have read in ages.” - John Mortimer “Move over, Raymond Chandler and Nathaniel West - Jonathan Lynn´s hit LA. A thought-filled, mystery-laced, laugh-packed, cynical, satirical, knockout novel that takes on L.A.’s cluttered complex culture, the gratuitous embroidery of Amercian speech, the seismic idiocy of the movie business, feel-good religion, feel-bad psychoanalysis, academian nuts, single sex, and group, as well.” - Larry Gelbart