"Pulp fun at its best!" - Publishers Weekly
The Platinum Loop
by Austin Williams
Las Vegas, 1973. Two-bit film producer Gene Hoffman is flat broke and desperate to wash away the sins of his recent past. When he meets a low-rent hustler named Floyd Manning who promises an easy payday with minimal risk, Gene enters into a scheme that looks like salvation. It quickly turns into a nightmare.
The unlikely ticket to riches at the center of their plan: a raunchy home movie starring the most famous Hollywood blonde of the 20th century. She’s not quite who Gene expects her to be, and she comes with a price far greater than he can pay.
Tender and violent, comic and dark, sexy and suspenseful, THE PLATINUM LOOP by Austin Williams is a breakneck ride from start to finish.
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW:
Pulp fun at its best, Williams' (Crimson Orgy) second novel combines Elmore Leonard's style with a sleazy Vegas setting. In 1973, con artist Floyd Manning has documents that prove the existence of a film reel showing Marilyn Monroe in the middle of an intimate moment. Read more . . .
Though he has lined up a buyer--Henry Prewett, a menacing and perverted Monroeaficionado--he doesn't have the film itself. Fortunately, he meets down on his luck film producer Gene Hoffman (one of the leads from Crimson Orgy), who needs $1,000 to option a quality screenplay that will vault his career into legitimacy.
Floyd proposes a dangerous ploy: with Stella, a shockingly convincing Monroe impersonator, they can use the description in the documents to shoot the film and sell it themselves. Things go well until gangsters hunting Floyd meet up with a private detective hunting Gene. Floyd and Gene then flee to Tijuanawith a half-shot film to try to get what money they can from Henry.
Though these two are scheming losers, their engaging dynamic contributes to the novel's fast pace.
`— Thomas Gaughan BOOKLIST REVIEW:
"Dodgy Hollywood memorabilia dealer Floyd Manning is about to be murdered by three drunken, angry Texans when Gene Hoffman, an angry, 360-pound producer of bad drive-in movies (Cheerleaders in Jail), intervenes and saves Floyd’s life. Read more . . .
"It’s Las Vegas 1973, and Gene has just been wiped out in a casino. Over breakfast, Floyd offers Gene half the proceeds of the sale of an old stag loop starring Marilyn Monroe. Of course, it’s not that simple. The Texans still want Floyd dead, and a sleazy Miami PI is stalking Gene.
"There’s also a gorgeous Marilyn lookalike, her hypervolatile Vietnam-hero boyfriend, and a memorably twisted agricultural tycoon who lives in a re-created southern plantation in the mountains outside Tijuana and is the potential buyer of the Platinum Loop.
"Nearly every character is a scammer, or is planning to kill someone, or is simply crazy, and Williams offers both laughs and action as the bizarre plot unwinds. It’s noirish bizzaro fun, and recent news stories about a real Monroe stag loop may heighten reader interest."
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