The dazzling fusion of hard-boiled dialogue, psychological relativism and slapstick satire make The Menaced Assassin a postModern answer to Through the Looking Glass. Anti-heroine Celeste is an aspiring fashion designer, but first she must create an identity for herself, an identity she approaches through some "other zone" -- a mirror-world pieced together from old Hollywood movie plots, scenes out of sleazy crime novels and melodramas, ads in trashy magazines, fuzzy AM radio shows, and a stream of great overheard conversations.
