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  • Published: 13 February 2017
  • ISBN: 9781784757083
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $25.00

Putting On The Ritz



The gloriously funny sequel to Blue Heaven.

Following the hilarious debacle of Blue Heaven, librettist Philip Cavanaugh has again allowed himself to be drawn into a fiendish money-making plan by his friend and ex-lover Gilbert Selwyn.

Gilbert has fallen in with Tommy Parker, a veritable Adonis and a magazine editor employed by media magnate Boyd Larkin. Philip's brief is to spy on Larkin's greatest adversary Peter Champion. To this end Philip enters the Champion entourage - a clan so poisonous they make the Borgias look Amish - with his songwriting partner Claire. Together they are to turn Champion's talentless wife Ilsa (a woman so rich she 'ovulates Fabergé eggs') into a chanteuse.

As Philip and Gilbert out-spy each other in vying for Tommy's admiration, plot follows counter-plot in a novel whose comic complications, devastating repartee and cast of high-hat lowlifes is nothing short of dazzling and unforgettable.

  • Published: 13 February 2017
  • ISBN: 9781784757083
  • Imprint: Arrow
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 352
  • RRP: $25.00

About the author

Joe Keenan

A playwright and lyricist, Joe Keenan received his M.F.A in Musical Theatre from New York University. His musical The Times received the Richard Rodgers Development Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters as well as the Kleban Award from the Ed Kleban Foundation. His first novel, Blue Heaven – which introduced the characters of Philip Cavanaugh, Gilbert Selwyn and Claire Simmons – is also published by Arrow. Mr Keenan spent six years as a writer/producer for the television show Frasier. His work on the show earned him five Emmys and two Writers Guild Awards. He has also worked as a writer on the television series Desperate Housewives along with a number of screenplays. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr Keenan lives in Los Angeles with his partner Gerry Bernardi.

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Praise for Putting On The Ritz

made me howl with laughter - literally

David Leavitt

Keenan writes like an uncloseted Coward. Not high-minded satire but somethign much rarer - pure-hearted camp

Voice Literary Supplement