I know how to handle stars. The lunch pail ghosts don’t. They treat them like rational, intelligent human beings. I know better.

The adventures of David Handler’s celebrity ghost writer sleuth, Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag (and his excessively anthropomorphic basset hound, Lulu) continue with The Boy Who Never Grew Up.

In most of these books, you can kind of guess who the central “celebrity” is supposed to be – they’re generally based on one or two real-world characters. In the case of The Boy Who Never Grew Up, it’s harder to tell. Author Handler seems to have several Hollywood characters in mind – a bit of Michael Jackson, a bit of Walt Disney, a bit of Steven Spielberg. And the studio depicted doesn’t really resemble anything that exists in our world anymore.

Matthew Wax is (or has been) the biggest producer in Hollywood. A kind of filmmaker-savant, he has made the most popular films in history, and built his own studio, devoted to turning out wholesome, heartwarming fare portraying an idealized American life. He is, however, essentially a big child. He avoids the real world, and even lives on the set where his most successful, family-oriented movies were filmed. With his mother close at hand, keeping a watch on him.

He was married, to Pennyroyal Brim, the actress he discovered to play the cheerleader girlfriend in his movies. But she is divorcing him now, taking their child with her, and through her shark lawyer she is accusing him of various cruelties and perversions. She’s even writing a book about it. So Matthew’s people bring Hoagy in, to write a book from Matthew’s own point of view.

The celebrity subjects Hoagy has dealt with up to now have generally fit the stereotypes – arrogant, thin-skinned, narcissistic. Matthew is rather different. He really is just a nice kid who had a rough childhood and grew up maladjusted. Hoagy not only becomes his friend (how can you resist a guy who owns the car from “Route 66” and lends it to you?), but he works up the personal concern to help Matthew move out of his comfort zone a little.

The whole thing could be kind of heartwarming, like a Michael Wax movie, if there weren’t a murderer lurking around, and if we didn’t get a very shocking revelation of that murderer’s motives in the end.

Also there’s a big twist in Hoagy’s own life, almost as shocking in its own way.

I’d call The Boy Who Never Grew Up one of the better entries in this entertaining series. Moderate cautions for adult language and themes.