Stewart "Hoagy" Hoag is making progress on what he hopes will be his long-awaited second novel. When his ex-wife Merilee offers her home for Hoagy's use while she's shooting on location, hope blossoms that he might finally get some real work done ... andsolidify their rekindling romance. His literary agent asks Hoagy to meet with reviled editor Sylvia James, for a drink at the Algonquin Hotel. She discloses that aging literary genius Addison James-- her father and main client-- has not written his last two bestselling historical sagas, and his assistant Tommy O'Brien has run away, holding the most recent manuscript for ransom. Now Hoagy is in hot pursuit of O'Brien-- and knee-deep in a mugging, a stolen manuscript, and three murders. -- adapted from jacket