Regards, B.T.

About the Book

Las Vegas book critic Frank Dremel discovers that the hot new bestseller he’s reviewing is plagiarized from dozens, perhaps hundreds, of other authors’ works.  His editor assigns him the task to follow up on the story, and Dremel soon finds himself in New York, where a meeting with Cecily Fortescue, the editor-of-record of "Man as Pendulum," is  horrified to learn that the book is a fraud, and that her own career at the publishing house of C.L. Piper and Sons is probably over.

Cecily and Frank quickly progress from the professional to the personal, kindling a budding romance that both regret having to put on hold as Dremel flies to the West Coast to try finding Blake Teasdale, “author” of the bogus novel.  But while Frank is in Palm Springs, setting up an appointment with Teasdale’s agent, he learns from a TV newscast that Blake Teasdale has been murdered in Santa Barbara.

Back in Las Vegas as he tries piecing the story together, Frank is interviewed by Kathleen King, a reporter for Channel 3 News.  He feels an attraction for her that complicates his already chaotic life, since he soon hears from Cecily, who has been fired from her editor’s job, and is flying to Vegas to be with him.

Kathleen is skeptical about Frank’s interest in her, but not convinced that he is trying to maintain two romances.  With them now assigned to the same story, she decides to bide her time and learn whether Dremel is sincere, or merely a womanizer on the prowl.

The mystery deepens as a computer science professor at the University of Nevada Las Vegas is brought into the picture, theorizing that Man as Pendulum is quite possibly randomly constructed by way of a computer program.

With Cecily on the scene, doing her best to undermine Dremel’s attempts to gain Kathleen’s trust, the search for the truth about Blake Teasdale grows ever more serpentine.  Another murder occurs, and another spurious book, Beneath the Elms, shows up on Frank Dremel’s desk for reviewing.

And, just as Frank and Kathleen are turning their suspicions toward Cecily Fortescue, she is attacked by someone while staying at Dremel’s house, someone who ransacks the place in search of something Cecily may have possessed.  

The hair-raising climax follows a final journey made by Dremel and Kathleen, one that takes them back to New York, then to the brush country of South Texas, and finally to the lakeside town of Benton Harbor, Michigan.  There, a macabre reunion and a terrifying chase take place, and the puzzle is finally solved…with disquieting possibilities for the future of book publishing left for the reader to think about.

About the Author

Dennis Havens, former Las Vegas musician, began writing mystery/suspense novels on breaks between shows. With over a dozen completed works, he is busy on a new book, set in the turbulent, high-stakes world of virtuoso conductors and New York symphonic music in the decade following World War II. Havens now makes his home in Oklahoma City.