Return of the Player

The Return of the Player, Michael Tolkin's brilliant addition to the saga of Griffin Mill, studio executive and murderer, was a national best seller in hardcover, published to major media coverage and significant review attention. "A wicked fever dream of a novel" (San Francisco Chronicle), The Return of the Player sends Griffin out beyond the secure orbit of story meetings and expense-account lunches. Fifteen years after the events of The Player, Griffin has gotten away with murder and risen up the ranks of the studio--but not the top. Now he wants out. Hollywood has changed. The business has peaked: box office is down, never to return. Griffin is convinced that Hollywood is dying because the world is dying. Griffin needs a safe haven, a private island somewhere in the South Pacific with an airstrip and high ground. But his life has become expensive. As the novel opens, Griffin is broke, down to his last $6 million. He has one final desperate plan: to quit the studio and convince Phil Ginsberg, an almost-billionaire who aspires to "really savage wealth," to become his partner. Ginsberg takes the bait. He sees the potential in Griffin, a master of stories, and hires him to write one starring his money. It looks like Griffin's dream is on track, but while his ideas percolate, his personal life is falling apart. He is impotent and allergic to Viagra. His second marriage is damaged, perhaps permanently, and he's beginning to think he shouldn't have divorced his first wife. Child Services is threatening to put his daughter into protective custody after his wife beats her in public. And if that's not enough, Griffin even has to commit another murder when his plan nearly collapses. With TheReturn of the Player, his fourth novel, Tolkin again delivers a dazzling, incisive portrait of contemporary society gone out of control. But as The Player says, "Happy endings. Always happy endings."Tolkin, Michael is the author of 'Return of the Player ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780802143020 and ISBN 0802143024.