Hollywood’s funniest amateur sleuth must contend with a disgraced sitcom star and a mysterious killer in this Edgar Award–winning mystery series.

Lyle Hednut, known to America as Uncle Chubby, has been the top draw in television comedy for three seasons straight. He is three hundred pounds of good humor and wholesome charm, beloved by children and adults alike . . . until the day the police find him enjoying the show at the wrong kind of movie theater in Times Square. The arrest destroys his image, but his sitcom is too popular for the network to shut down. About to start production on the fourth season, he decides to tell his side of the story, and hires Stewart Hoag—failed novelist and ghostwriter for the disgraced—to do the writing. 

Hoagy quickly sees that Uncle Chubby’s cheer is no more than an act. The comedy icon is thin-skinned, irrational, and prone to rage. With a man like that in charge of a TV show, it won’t be long before comedy violence turns into the real thing.

This edition includes AJ Finn’s introductory essay, “It’s Time to Discover Your New Sophisticated Sleuth Obsession: Stewart Hoag.”