Paint It Black

Wheelchair-bound author Jack Hawkins complains only mildly when the producer of the TV movie made from his police novel changes the black widow of the title to a blonde, when her dead cop husband metamorphoses from black to a matching shade, and when the small, cynical Casey himself is made over to suit the appearance of the hunk who plays him. But then events that vary from mean pranks to potential murder begin to occur. Jack and his fiancee, Megan, are impelled into a search for the reason that this harmless and basically simpleminded film should be imperiling the lives of not only the actors and crew but some of Jack's policeman friends as well. What they find is alarming: Behind the tricks and the mayhem is an unbalanced mind-one capable of being clever, devious, and blindly determined on revenging an imagined hurt. The hunt takes Jack to an encounter with a hired assassin, to the estate of the leader of a right-wing military cult, and finally, into an underground hiding place where he is held, bound and helpless, in what is a terrifying prison and a perverted shrine. This is Rodman Philbrick's third novel about the ingenious and quietly dauntless Hawkins and his spirited Meg; readers who haven't met them previously will want to catch up quickly.