Book Reviews
Holmes, who has won honors galore for his inventive storytelling on Broadway and elsewhere, can be forgiven for milking the mystery of ''the Girl in New Jersey'' because he delivers such a giddy fun-house ride through bygone eras. As the go-go girl of the 70's, O'Connor tempts us to throw on a pair of bell-bottoms and dash out for some reckless sex, while Vince and Lanny invest the forgotten 50's with all the brash and vulgar celebrity glamour of a mad tea party in Las Vegas.
Marilyn Stasio - New York Times
It should be no surprise that, after his long career in music and the theater, Holmes's first novel is an insider's look at the world of show business. To be precise, it is an exceedingly clever, somewhat troubling thriller based on the lives of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.
Patrick Anderson - Washington Post
Where the Truth Lies is a labor of love. Every scrap of lawyerese or Mafia-speak, every tidbit of Hollywood lore, every scene of mental or physical intoxication, every tightening of the suspense — as O'Connor, entangled in her own lies, risks embarrassment, her book deal and finally her life — is beautifully rendered, polished to a sheen.
Michael Harris - Los Angeles Times
Holmes is an award-winning Broadway playwright and composer (The Mystery of Edwin Drood; Accomplice), so it's only appropriate that his hugely entertaining first novel should be set in the world of show business. It purports to be the account of one K. O'Connor (we never learn her first name), a smart, pretty and accomplished young journalist who has been commissioned to write a book about a celebrated comedy team of the '60s, Vince Collins-who sang smoothly and was a ladies' man, and Lanny Morris, who clowned around (Martin and Lewis, anyone?). At the height of their career, a dead girl was found in their hotel room, and although neither of them was accused (they had airtight alibis), the incident put an end to their act, and as the book begins, they haven't seen each other for years. O'Connor sniffs around Collins, reads some chapters Morris has set down for a book of his own and begins to wonder just where the truth does lie. Holmes has a wonderful feeling for period detail, and the '60s and '70s spring vividly back to horrific life through the brilliant narration of the romantically susceptible O'Connor. For much of its course the novel is witty, sexy and suspenseful, but eventually it morphs into a more conventional whodunit, with one of those windups in which a complicated plot is sorted out in improbable dialogue between accuser and perpetrator, and the giddy pleasures of the first two-thirds are somewhat overshadowed. That's not enough, however, to spoil what is for most of the way a glittering ride.
Publishers Weekly
Though no real-life celebrities are identified, this first novel makes it clear from the outset that it takes inspiration from a boffo comedy duo from the 1950s-one crooner, one spastic. O'Connor, a young and sexy female reporter, closes a deal to write the singer's biography, but his estranged partner keeps entering the picture; he has his own version of the team's history, including the darker avenues. There is a question of a murdered woman, and investigator though she may be, O'Connor soon realizes the risk of coming between the two icons. For all of Holmes's accomplishments (pop singer, Tony and Emmy Award winner, record producer), this is his debut in the writing world, and it's notable for its wit, snappy dialog, and uncanny sense of Hollywood glitz, backstage politics, and dirty deeds. This can't-miss novel will have wide appeal, including fans of the time period, modern mystery lovers, and anyone who likes turning pages rapidly. Highly recommended
Library Journal
Sly young reporter digs into the seamy past of a comedy team who are no longer on speaking terms. Edgar/Tony/Emmy award-winning playwright/singer/songwriter Holmes hangs his splashy and amusing plot on an unsolved murder in the bitter past of a song-and-laff-riot team unmistakably modeled on Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis-nuances may be lost on post-boomer generations, but they'll still enjoy the naughty bits (there are plenty), the jokes (ranging from Borscht Belt to Seinfeld), and the sardonic musings of our heroine K. O'Connor (full first name never given), an ambitious, clever, and foolhardy writer in her 20s. O'Connor's New York publisher has managed to extract a million-dollar contract from Vince Collins, the famously discreet singing half of the now-parted duo. Her goal is to get to the bottom of the scandal that immediately preceded Collins's split from Lanny Morris in the early '60s. The scandal had to do with the discovery of a beautiful bellhop drowned in a bathtub in New Jersey, a thousand miles from her job at the Versailles Hotel in Miami, where Collins and Morris had just performed their final polio telethon. O'Connor is unsurprised when her knees buckle in the presence of the gorgeous Vince, but she's flabbergasted when, on a flight to New York, she succumbs to the unsuspected magnetism of Lanny Morris, who is absolutely nothing like his repulsive screen image. Immediately complicating her life and setting up the story, O'Connor pretends to be her schoolteacher girlfriend Beejay Trout and lets Lanny take her to the moon. Readers who can accept the possibility of a really cool Jerry Lewis and a twentysomething reporter with the sharp wit of a fiftysomething comedy genius will have a swell time finding out how the beautiful corpse came to lose a couple of toes and what really came between the former chums. Slickly funny showbiz romp with lots of great scenery.
Kirkus Reviews