From Publishers Weekly
This first novel from TV writer/producer Cannell concerns a Mafia attempt to put a puppet leader in the White House. Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Successful television producer Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A-Team) has turned his many talents to the field of novel writing. His first effort is the story of a chaotically arranged attempt to subvert justice and place a mobster-backed nominee in the White House. Mickey Alo, the mastermind behind the plan, elicits the assistance of childhood pal Ryan Bolt, recently down on his luck. However, Ryan soon sees beyond the sham and, closely aided by Mickey's sister Lucinda, sets off to uncover the sinister plot. With lots of "shoot-'em-up" scenes and a liberal sprinkling of vulgar language, The Plan would make a better TV movie than an audiobook. Indistinguishable characters and an incoherent and weakly contrived plot make this abridgment, which is narrated by the author, a marginal purchase for public libraries.?Gretchen Browne, Rockville Centre P.L., N.Y.Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Hollywood script crafters are routinely making the transition these days to fiction writing--some more successfully than others. Cannell, whose TV creative credits include The Rockford Files and The Commish, is one of the successful ones, offering an action-packed page-turner of a first novel. Ryan Bolt and Mickey Alo have been friends since boyhood, but two more different personalities would be hard to find. Ryan is a laid-back Californian who's coasted through life on good looks and charm, while dumpy, swarthy Mickey, son of a Mafia don, has used charisma and his father's connections to get where he is. Approaching middle age, Ryan is faced with a series of personal crises, including his son's death and a failed career. Enter Mickey, who offers Ryan a job working on the campaign of presidential candidate Haze Richards. Ryan gratefully accepts, but he soon senses that Richards is merely a puppet and that there's some sinister purpose--masterminded by Mickey--behind the sham candidacy. Ryan is determined to stop the charade, but first he'll have to confront the power-mad, menacing Mickey, whose loyalty to Ryan flies in the face of blind ambition. Even though the dialogue is littered with sound bites, the blow-'em-up, shoot-'em-up escapades require superhuman survival skills, and the characters are a long way from well rounded, most readers won't mind. Cannell leaves 'em begging for more with a story that's pure entertainment from the first attention-grabbing page to the last. Emily Melton
"Hot...The Reader can't put it down.
"Thrilling...A blistering page turner."
Book Description
The selling of the president is an assignment that could salvage TV producer Ryan Bolt's damaged life and career, But Bolt doesn't know whom he truly serves. And by the time he finds out, it may be already too late...for one nation under siege.
About the Author
Stephen J. Cannell is the bestselling author of The Plan, Final Victim, and King Con, and the man behind such classic TV action shows as "The Rockford Files," The A-Team," "Hunter," and "The Commish," amoung many other hit series. He lives in Los Angeles.
The Plan
FROM OUR EDITORS
From the Emmy Award-winning writer/producer of such shows as The Rockford Files, Wiseguy, & The Commish, comes this gripping thriller about the Mafia, their secret control of a TV network, & their plan to run a puppet candidate for the U.S. presidency.
ANNOTATION
Ryan Bolt's career as TV reporter crashes in the aftermath of his son's accidental death and the breakup of his marriage. 4 cassettes.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Wheeler Cassidy, charming black sheep of a wealthy Beverly Hills family, has never done much with his life except play golf, drink, and seduce other men's wives. But after his politically connected brother's mysterious death, Wheeler embarks on a perilous journey to find himself and the Chinese gangsters who murdered the only member of his family he ever really loved. Along the way, he teams up with Tanisha Williams, a beautiful African-American detective raised in South Central L.A. and now assigned to the LAPD's Asian Crimes Task Force. Together they face the violence and corruption that stretches from Hong Kong's most notorious criminal Triad to the highest reaches of the American government.
FROM THE CRITICS
USA Today
Hot...The Reader can't put it down.
Boston Globe
Thrilling...A blistering page turner.
Publishers Weekly
Veteran TV producer Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A-Team, The Commish, etc.) brings comic-book plotting and cellophane characterization to his first thriller, about the 1996 presidential election. The ``plan'' dates from the 1970s, when some farsighted mobsters decide gradually to buy controlling stakes in TV networks to give their favorite pols ``face time'' and eventually put their own man in the White House. It's a high-concept plot, worthy of a TV movie, but who'd want to play the hero? Ryan Bolt, an impossibly WASP-y and wimpy TV producer, is asked by short, fat and nasty Mickey Alo, his old prep-school pal, to film a documentary about a long-shot presidential hopeful. As Ryan susses out that Mickey is engaged in buying the presidency for the airhead governor of Rhode Island, he also falls hard for Lucinda Alo, Mickey's advanced degree-holding sister who, preposterously, doesn't know about the family business. The writing is by turns pretentious (``Dawn broke like a cheap wine cooler spreading an ugly red stain on the gray ocean''), silly (``Ryan knew where he was headed but had no inkling where he was going'') and bafflingly vulgar (``A shot of adrenaline hit Ryan's heart like cold piss''). As Ryan is drawn deeper into the mobby machinations of Mickey, and as the fate of the Republic comes to rest on his modest shoulders, Cannell hits every lurid and gory button possible in this cartoonly tale. (June)
Library Journal
Successful television producer Cannell (The Rockford Files, The A-Team) has turned his many talents to the field of novel writing. His first effort is the story of a chaotically arranged attempt to subvert justice and place a mobster-backed nominee in the White House. Mickey Alo, the mastermind behind the plan, elicits the assistance of childhood pal Ryan Bolt, recently down on his luck. However, Ryan soon sees beyond the sham and, closely aided by Mickey's sister Lucinda, sets off to uncover the sinister plot. With lots of "shoot-'em-up" scenes and a liberal sprinkling of vulgar language, The Plan would make a better TV movie than an audiobook. Indistinguishable characters and an incoherent and weakly contrived plot make this abridgment, which is narrated by the author, a marginal purchase for public libraries.-Gretchen Browne, Rockville Centre P.L., N.Y.
BookList - Emily Melton
Hollywood script crafters are routinely making the transition these days to fiction writing--some more successfully than others. Cannell, whose TV creative credits include "The Rockford Files" and "The Commish", is one of the successful ones, offering an action-packed page-turner of a first novel. Ryan Bolt and Mickey Alo have been friends since boyhood, but two more different personalities would be hard to find. Ryan is a laid-back Californian who's coasted through life on good looks and charm, while dumpy, swarthy Mickey, son of a Mafia don, has used charisma and his father's connections to get where he is. Approaching middle age, Ryan is faced with a series of personal crises, including his son's death and a failed career. Enter Mickey, who offers Ryan a job working on the campaign of presidential candidate Haze Richards. Ryan gratefully accepts, but he soon senses that Richards is merely a puppet and that there's some sinister purpose--masterminded by Mickey--behind the sham candidacy. Ryan is determined to stop the charade, but first he'll have to confront the power-mad, menacing Mickey, whose loyalty to Ryan flies in the face of blind ambition. Even though the dialogue is littered with sound bites, the blow-'em-up, shoot-'em-up escapades require superhuman survival skills, and the characters are a long way from well rounded, most readers won't mind. Cannell leaves 'em begging for more with a story that's pure entertainment from the first attention-grabbing page to the last.
Art & Photography
Book Info
