Monday, March 29, 2010

I Just Read… Too Much Money by Dominick Dunne

--by Hanje Richards
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As a fan of Dominick Dunne for many years, I was saddened by his death
last August just before his 84th birthday. He did leave us one last gift with his final novel, Too Much Money. In addition to the 11 novels and books of nonfiction that he wrote, he wrote for many years for Vanity Fair and appeared regularly on television discussing the rich and famous and their crimes.
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Famous t
rials that Dunne covered included those of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow, Michael Skakel, William Kennedy Smith, and the Menendez brothers.
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Another
City, Not My Own: A Novel in the Form of a Memoir - Gus Bailey (Dominick Dunne’s alter ego), journalist to high society, knows the sordid secrets of the very rich. Now he turns his penetrating gaze to a courtroom in Los Angeles, witnessing the trial of the century unfold before his startled eyes. As the infamous case and characters begin to take shape, and a range of celebrities from Frank Sinatra to Heidi Fleiss share their own theories of the crime, Bailey bears witness to the ultimate perversion of principle and the most amazing gossip machine in Hollywood all wrapped in a marvelously addictive true-to-life tale of love, rage, and ruin. . . .
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An Incon
venient Woman - Jules Mendelson is wealthy. Astronomically so. He and his wife lead the kind of charity-giving, art-filled, high-society life for which each has been carefully groomed... until Jules falls in love with Flo March, a beautiful actress/waitress. What Flo discovers about the super-rich is not a pretty sight. And in the end, she wants no more than what she was promised. But when Flo begins to share the true story of her life among the Mendelsons, not everyone is in a listening mood. And some cold shoulders have very sharp edges. . . .
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Justice: Crimes, Trials and Punishments
- For more than two decades, Vanity Fair has published Dominick Dunne’s brilliant, revelatory chronicles of the most famous crimes, trials, and punishments of our time. Here, in one volume, are his mesmerizing tales of justice denied and justice affirmed. Whether writing of Claus von Bülow’s romp through two trials; the Los Angeles media frenzy surrounding O.J. Simpson; the death by fire of multibillionaire banker Edmond Safra; or the Greenwich, Connecticut, murder of Martha Moxley and the indictment— decades later — of Michael Skakel, Dominick Dunne tells it honestly and tells it from his unique perspective. His search for the truth is relentless.
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Mansions of Li
mbo - Dominick Dunne has met them all stars and slugs, criminals and victims, the innocent and the hideously guilty and now his two provocative collections of Vanity Fair portraits are in one irresistible volume. From posh Park Avenue duplexes to the extravagant mansions of Beverly Hills, from tasteful London town houses to the wild excesses of million-dollar European retreats, here are the movers and shakers and the people who pretend to be.
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Filled with pathos and wit, insight
and sass, Dominick Dunne gives the reader an extraordinary peek into the rarefied world of the rich, the royal, and the ruined. For he is the man who knows all their secrets and now those secrets are out.
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Season in Purgatory - They were the family with everything: Money. Influence. Glamour. Power. The power to halt a police investigation in its tracks. The power to spin a story, concoct a lie, and believe it was the truth. The power to murder without guilt, without shame, and without ever paying the price. They were the Bradleys, America's royalty. But an outsider refuses to play his part. And now, the day of reckoning has arrived.
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Too Much Money - Dominick Dunne revives the world he first introduced in his mega-bestselling novel People Like Us, and he brings readers up to date on favorite characters such as Ruby and Elias Renthal, Lil Altemus, and, of course, the beloved Gus Bailey. Once again, he invites us to pull up a seat at the most important tables at Swifty's, get past the doormen at esteemed social clubs like The Butterfield, and venture into the innermost chambers of the Upper East Side's most sumptuous mansions. Too Much Money is a shrewd comedy of Manhattan’s elite in the time of Bernie Madoff.

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Two Mrs. Grenvilles - When Navy ensign Billy Grenville, heir to a vast New York fortune, sees showgirl Ann Arden on the dance floor, it is love at first sight. And much to the horror of Alice Grenville the indomitable family matriarch he marries her. Ann wants desperately to be accepted by high society and become the well-bred woman of her fantasies. But a gunshot one rainy night propels Ann into a notorious spotlight as the two Mrs. Grenvilles enter into a conspiracy of silence that will bind them together for as long as they live.