Patterson, whose most recent thriller was Escape The Night (1983),
checks in this time with the turgid and contrived tale of a
terrorist who kidnaps a wealthy woman and threatens to execute her
live on cable television. Private Screening is really two different
stories jury-rigged together. The first deals with rock-star Stacy
Tarrant and her lover, the Kennedy-esque Presidential candidate,
Senator James Kilcannon. Kilcannon is assassinated at a concert
that Stacy gives to raise funds for the campaign; his killer is
Harry Carson, a Vietnam vet who claims to have been suffering from
flashbacks at the time of the murder. At his trial, Carson is
represented by tough-guy defender of the downtrodden, Tony Lord,
who, much to Stacy's consternation, manages to get him off on an
insanity plea. The second story begins a year later. A hooded
terrorist kidnaps John Damone, Stacy's longtime personal manager,
and Alexis Parnell, wife of wealthy newspaper magnate, Colby
Parnell. The terrorist, who calls himself, with stunning
originality, Phoenix ("It's a mythic bird," Lord helpfully explains
for those not in the know), threatens to kill both of them up close
and personal on television if Stacy doesn't give a concert to raise
five million for the poor, and if poor, rich Colby doesn't confess
his capitalist sins in front of the world. Implausibly enough,
Stacy hires Lord to advise her, and he tracks down Phoenix.
Phoenix, it turns out, is really John Damone - he'd put Carson up
to killing Kilcannon so he, Damone, could rip off the concert funds
in the confusion and use them to finance his kidnapping of Alexis.
Why kidnap Alexis? Because John Damone is really Robert Parnell,
the weird, Oedipus-driven son of Alexis and Colby who had
disappeared way back in 1968. Anyway, Phoenix/Damone/Robert kills
Alexis and is himself killed, on his way to the police station, by
his father. Who then commits suicide. Loony Vietnam vets, televised
kidnappings, a rock star who could be a clone of Linda Ronstadt:
Patterson throws a lot of darts at the old bestseller bulls-eye,
but keeps missing by miles. (Kirkus Reviews)
The nation is stunned silent when presidential hopeful James Kilcannonis shot dead point blank, while sharing the stage at a benefit concertwith his rock star girlfriend Stacy Tarrant. Fiercely independent attorney Tony Lord defends the assassin in a sensational trial that erupts in to the media event of the decade. But the most shocking gambit ever witnessed in the history of television has yet to unfold. As America watches, a mysterious and ruthless figure known only as Phoenix takes to the airwaves in the ultimate act of high-tech terror.Holding the wife of a wealthy newspaper mogul and Stacy's manager hostage, Phoenix mounts a televised trial of his own - in which Stacy Tarrant and Tony Lord are the helpless defendants, millions of viewersare jurors, and - unless his chilling demands are met - Phoenix is theunstoppable executioner...
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