Publisher's Synopsis
Blue Venusians from outer space are watching Los Angeles in August 1953, where a sensational murder trial and Flying Saucer Convention compete with smog and a round black and white tv screen to distract George Tirebiter from completing his screenplay. A famous 1940 radio star now reduced to pounding a typewriter, he little suspects that murders are about to take place in the Rose-Bud Bungalow Court units he owns. Tenant-landlord relations will never be the same.
After Mr. Wispell, his ham-operator tenant, dies from radio electrocution and another dead body is discovered in unit #7, a mysterious radio message from Outer Space guides Tirebiter on a quizzical quest for the murderers. From the Follies Burlesque and Strip City to the desolate shores of the Salton Sea, he and companion, Mrs. Music, follow a twisting trail of clues. Ever-tightening plot strands weave Marilyn Monroe, Tempest Storm, Lenny Bruce, and Sgt. Cummings of the LAPD Murder Squad into a crazy quilt of intrigue that only an alien abduction, the arrival of Venusians, and the First Church of Science Fiction can resolve.
Can you stand the exhausting hilarity or the final shocking revelations?
Illustrated.
About the author: David Ossman was a member of the Firesign Theatre, dubbed "the Beatles of Comedy" by the Library of Congress. He is a pioneer FM and public broadcaster, three-time Grammy nominee, honored for Lifetime Achievement with the Norman Corwin Award and the Mystery Writers Angie. As a voice actor, he is best known as Cornelius in A Bug's Life. His recent books include Marshmallows & Despair; The Sullen Art - Recording the Revolution in American Poetry; The Ronald Reagan Murder Case - A George Tirebiter Mystery, Dr. Firesign's Follies - Radio, Comedy, Mystery, History; The Firesign Theatre's Anythynge You Want To; Exorcism In Your Daily Life; Profiles In Barbeque Sauce.