Jimmy Lee Baylis Was A Wise Man,

I Think In The Old Days, The Nexus Of Weirdness Ran Through Southern California, And To A Degree New York City. I Think It's Changed So That Every Bizarre Story In The Country Now Has A Florida Connection. I Don't Know Why, Except It Must Be Some Inversion Of Magnetic Poles Or Something.

Unfortunately, Florida Is A Mecca For The Shyster Element, And There Are Apparently No Rules On The Kinds Of Advertising A Lawyer Can Do.

Jimmy Lee Baylis Was A Wise Man, And Knew Better Than To Talk Back To The Man Who Signed His Paycheck.

Every Writer Scrounges For Inspiration In Different Places, And There's No Shame In Raiding The Headlines. It's Necessary, In Fact, When Attempting Contemporary Satire. Sharp-edged Humor Relies On Topical Reference Points.

The Thieves Of Manhattan Is A Sly And Cutting Riff On The Book-publishing World That Is Quite Funny Unless You Happen To Be An Author, In Which Case The Novel Will Make You Consider A More Sensible Profession-like Being A Rodeo Clown, For Example, Or A Crab-fisherman In The Bering Sea.