I did believe that. Of course, you must remember that TV and movie people almost always mistake their business friends for real friends. This is partly because they want to believe that everyone they deal with truly loves them. And partly because they have no real friends.

David Handler, author of the Stewart Hoag mysteries, spent some time as a TV sitcom writer. He mines that vein of experience for background material for his mystery, The Man Who Cancelled Himself, in which we once again follow “Hoagy” Hoag, celebrity memoir ghost writer, and his scene-stealing basset hound, Lulu.

The first few Stewart Hoag books seemed to be heavily disguised portraits of actual characters, but as they go on, the author is spreading his net wider. The main character here, Lyle Hednut, is a lot like John Belushi, with some Rosanne Barr and Pee Wee Herman thrown in. He started in improv comedy, and worked his way up to having his own sitcom, playing “Uncle Chubby,” a sort of degenerate Mr. Rogers. The show was leading the ratings until Lyle got arrested under embarrassing circumstances in an adult theater. Now there’s pressure to cancel the show, and the network wants Hoagie to write a book that will give Lyle’s side of things. In order to fit in, he’s added to the series writing staff.

One of the first things Hoagy learns is that Lyle Hudnut is only marginally human. Big, overdramatic, Gargantuan, mercurial, he is a genuine narcissist with manic mood swings, who jumps from woman to woman and terrorizes his co-workers. He tells Hoagy a horrific story of childhood abuse, but Hoagy begins to suspect he’s left important points out. And when someone begins to sabotage the production, real danger presents itself.

This was one of my favorite books in this series, mainly because author Handler does something I never expected – he offers us a pair of characters, husband and wife, who are ordinary middle-class elderly Americans. They are neither well-educated nor stylish. Nevertheless, they are handled with genuine empathy and respect. The character of Hoagy Hoag generally presents himself as something of a snob, a latter-day Lord Peter or Philo Vance. But this was a nice scene. As a middle American, I appreciated it.

There was also an important development in Hoagy’s own life in this story. I was mostly in favor of it, but I thought our hero had been rather badly used. You can judge for yourself.

Pretty good stuff. Cautions for language and some gross mature content.