From Publishers Weekly Beck rightly dedicates this zany parody of 1920s exotic adventure fiction to Sax Rohmer， E. Phillip Oppenheim， the Baroness Orczy and their ilk， who created the genre. Movie superstar Nadia Wentworth reads The Wrath of Kali-Ra， written decades ago by the long-forgotten Valerian Ricardo， and determines to produce a film about the eponymous cruel dominatrix， Queen of Doom. Immediately， Nadia is besieged by a horde of greedy claimants to the Kali-Ra copyright and by others scrambling for a financial piece of the movie: Ricardo's possessive widow; his naive great-grandnephew; a scheming， possibly illegitimate granddaughter; an inquisitive academic authority on Ricardo; a luckless British screenwriter; a feckless lawyer representing a crook hiding in the Caribbean; an inept security adviser; a washed-up crooner with Mafia connections; and a mysterious "slave" of Kali-Ra. Melanie Oakley， Nadia's assistant， must sort through this dazzling hodgepodge and protect Nadia's project. Mistaken identity， accidents， fights， a stabbing and an abduction proceed apace， studded with hilarious excerpts from Ricardo's melodramatic novels. After a grand finale in which the copyright ownership is cleared and nearly all the characters pair off， readers will still be chuckling at this dead-on sendup of Hollywood and pulp fiction. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information， Inc. From Library Journal Nadia Wentworth， a big-bosomed， empty-headed Hollywood actress， chances upon a fictional character she wishes to portray. Taken from pulp novels by a jaded 1920s drug addict， Kali-Ra (the Queen of Doom) embodies a dangerous blend of eroticism， bondage， and violence. As soon as Nadia makes her plans known， grasping strangers appear on her doorstep: the author's ancient widow， an alcohol-soaked scriptwriter， and (could it be!) Kali-Ra's current incarnation. Beck's (We Interrupt This Broadcast， LJ 11/1/97) subsequent mixture of spoof， exaggerated confrontation， phoney mysticism， and murder spotlights Nadia's level-headed assistant Melanie， who saves the day. For larger collections.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information， Inc. See all Editorial Reviews