Main character Rollo Hemphill has a history with a life-sized rubber doll he dressed up to look like glamorous Hollywood star Monica LaMonica. And his plight is to fail—ever-upward. In the first book in the series, My Inflatable Friend, Rollo devises a screwball scheme with the doll to make his girlfriend Felicia jealous and stumbles into a starring gig on shock-jock radio. In the second book, Rubber Babes, he lands a cushy job heading up a Hollywood charity only to run from the Feds when he learns the operation is actually a money laundry. In the new book, Farnsworth’s Revenge, rubber-Monica disappears from crusty Hugo Farnsworth’s yacht in St. Tropez. Rollo gets drafted as an unofficial government operative to deal with the kidnappers. The doll has become a pawn in an international game involving an eccentric Turk who collects lookalikes—but who may have also collected state secrets, including the plans for cold fusion and a scheme for bankrupting the world’s money supply. All Rollo wants to do is get safely home to his estranged wife Felicia—who now happens to be pregnant. Is the child his? If not, will Rollo be bold enough to risk everything for a real life with a real woman? Once again, Rollo will prove that the male ego is as vulnerable as it is predictably deflatable.
