PRIVATE LIES is a mesmerizing read, starting with the powerful voice of Ken Kramer in the opening pages. I’m not going to provide a detailed plot summary, other than to say that this novel is a commanding glimpse into the minds of four very distinct characters. Mr. Adler rotates between these points of view, from a dispirited writer who has lost his dream and now settles for a job writing ads (Ken), to his long ago ballerina lover with whom he parted ways twenty years earlier and who he now runs into by a pure twist of fate (Carol), to his loving and enthusiastic wife, a virtual “earth mother,” who has organized his life and bore him two children (Maggie), to the final corner of this very odd rhombus, a self-engrossed, gourmand who’s always touting his latest “cause” and who can talk the best dinner partners under the table (Eliot).

One is immediately plunged into mystery and suspense when the story opens with a chance meeting between Ken, his wife Maggie, her new client Eliot, and his spouse, Carol. Ken knows she’s Carol—his past lover—yet she doesn’t acknowledge him. Not a glance, no eye contact, no conversation. Ken spends the whole evening wonder if this ethereal, swan-necked, divine creature is really the woman with whom he spent months of hot passion two decades ago. He’s positive it’s her; but why does she pretend not to know him?

Little by little, delicious secrets are unveiled. We discover Carol’s past, which I won’t divulge here, and finally get a peak into her mind.

I expected the story would stay in New York, set in apartments and coffee shops and restaurants, when suddenly the plot twists and we are airlifted to Africa!

The contrast between the scenes in the dark, dirty city to Africa are vibrantly divergent. Africa—land of the parching sun, torrential downpours, rare danger, and raw resplendent beauty—invades the minds of the quartet by unleashing inner urges, some not so pretty. The land influences and entices, invades sensible thoughts and tempts all four to go where they hadn’t dared before.

If it seems like I’m being cryptic here, I am. I don’t want to spoil the plot.

There are several twists in this story that made me stand up and applaud. Well done, Mr. Adler! It was these twists that grabbed my attention and made me love the book even more. As they should, secrets are unveiled and the plot runs wild with surprises coming in more frequent waves toward the end. Most satisfying.

I would recommend this book for adults only, particularly those who aren’t shy about reading delicately described sexual encounters. These tastefully drawn passages of great passion were evocative and sensual, adding to the texture of this finely woven literary tapestry. As in THE DAVID EMBRACE, Mr. Adler writes voluptuous and fiery passages when it comes to passion in the bedroom, or in the mind.

I’ve heard that PRIVATE LIES was up for a movie, and that was one of my first thoughts when I finished it. “What a great movie PRIVATE LIES would make!” I do hope that Hollywood grabs hold of this one and runs with it.

I highly recommend PRIVATE LIES for the thinking man or woman, and for those who enjoy diabolical, twisty plots and lush scenery.

Aaron Paul Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries, Moore Mysteries, and Tall Pines Mysteries enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their grandkids and dogs, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his website at www.lazarbooks.com and watch for his upcoming Twilight Times Books releases, FOR THE BIRDS (2011), ESSENTIALLY YOURS (2012), TERROR COMES KNOCKING (2011), FOR KEEPS (2012), DON’T LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (2012), and the author’s preferred editions of DOUBLE FORTÉ and UPSTAGED (2012).

I have been trying to figure out how a movie reportedly costing close to two hundred million dollars has failed to find a paying audience. The reviews have been either glowing or certainly respectful.

The enormously talented Martin Scorsese directed the movie based upon a successful children’s book by Brian Selznick, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which deals with the adventures of a 12-year-old boy who literally lives within the cavernous confines of a massive Parisian train station in 1931, whose principal chore is to keep the numerous clocks in the station in working order after the death of his drunken uncle, who had been charged with that operation.

A host of actors are on board, including the young boy played by Asa Butterfield, an old man played by the brilliant Ben Kingsley, a young girl played by Chloe Moretz, and a station policeman played by the actor and satirist, Sacha Baron Cohen.

The subtext and probably the inspiring motivation for this film comes from the fact that it is also about the movie pioneer Georges Méliès whose 1902 film, A Trip to the Moon, was the harbinger of what we now know as the movie industry.

There is no question that the technical aspects of this movie are spectacular, the craftsmanship is fantastic and every background aspect of the production, the sets, the costuming, the music, the lighting and the sound are worthy Academy Award prospects. There is an unmistakable sense of absolute fidelity in the re-creation of the times and the beauty and authenticity of Paris between the wars.

With so many talented people involved in this production, I feel somewhat of an ingrate to inject my own humble critique into the conversation, but the flaws seem obvious, especially to a storyteller in another medium.

The magic of this movie is everywhere but in the story. Technology seems to have trumped the essential ingredient of storytelling, which is “what happens next.” There is too much distraction and repetition. Close-ups of the boy actor and his emerald eyes seem excessive and disruptive.

There are too many holes in the logic of the story and too many scenes where the boy runs through the hidden network of spooky tunnels that form the labyrinth of the massive railroad station. The novelty begins to wear thin and the pacing seems to slow to a halt when various transitional materials kick in.

The film history references, while creative and interesting by themselves, do not seem to fit with the story and the central risk to the boy’s freedom. Because his father has died and he is an orphan, his most persistent danger is that he will be caught by the station cop and sent to an orphanage.

There is, of course, an attempt to wring pathos out of the boy’s plight and Ben Kingsley’s character develops arc from mean-minded to nice guy, but there is something missing. Perhaps the characters are too flat to be sympathetic and the absence of real evil perpetrators offers no real risk to our intrepid hero.

To give the devil (in this case, me) his due, perhaps maturity and the repetition of experience has wreaked havoc with my sense of wonder, but the poor attendance to this movie might indicate that I could be, at the very least, half right.

It seems obvious that the obsession with movies, their history, massive influence, remarkable technological advances, inner workings, glamour and joyous devotion to creating a parallel world to feed the dreams of millions was so tempting to Scorsese that he moved this project forward with his considerable clout, letting the story take a secondary role.

It shows.

The current memoir by a middle-aged woman named Mimi Alford about her affair with President John F. Kennedy when she was a 19-year-old White House intern heralds a new genre in the book business, Lover Lit.

Mrs. Alford’s “coming out” reveals her 18-month sexual escapade with President Kennedy who, she alleges, took her virginity in the First Lady’s bedroom. Contrived to be self-effacing, the book and its author have received kind reviews and interviews, like the one recently in The New York Times that reveals a gushing bouquet of envy by a writer who appears to fondly wish she, too, had parked her shoes at the foot of Kennedy’s bed, any bed.

Considering that John Kennedy was by all accounts a serial adulterer, one can expect a vast series of books to be inflicted on an eagerly awaiting public under the new genre with one overriding theme: “As a young nubile, naïve woman, I was the mistress of a powerful (and very well known) man.”

There is, of course, precedent for such a category, such as the Monica Lewinsky memoir and certainly numerous others, but the Alford memoir seems to offer a unifying content label that can encompass a vast output of sexual “tell-alls” about affairs with horny, dead men of historical importance. Just think of the lineup at Agents’ and Publishers’ offices with outlines of juicy details about bedding down with famous dead men.

Heck, a clever woman or man with a galloping imagination and a zest for research can make a case for herself or himself that might pass as fact.

In the matter of John Kennedy, there are numerous well-known anecdotes about his many seductions using the White House swimming pool as a perfect luring environment. Intimate Kennedy staffers have often told the story of the two girls in the typing pool, dubbed “Fiddle” and “Faddle” who were called upon frequently to utilize their servicing skills for the president’s needs.

Then there is the oft-touted story of his liaison with Judith Campbell Exner, the girlfriend of mob boss Sam Giancana, now deceased, and the one about Ellen Rometsch, the alleged East German spy. Both can be easily packaged in book form.

Dollars to doughnuts, the ladies of his many affairs held dear those eventful trysts and one would think they or their progeny or their best friends would be first on line to peddle an account of their real or faux memories of those halcyon days. As this genre progresses, expect even more intimate details of sexual techniques and preferences to spice up the accounts.

Ahead, too, with women beginning to surge in the political arena, one cannot discount the possibility of lovers surfacing with their own accounts of secret sexual affairs. An entire industry may be aborning.

Having lived in Washington many years and known some of the inside players of the Kennedy era and before and beyond, there are enough stories both hidden and in circulation that would constitute a vast library for this genre. While the Kennedy’s — Dad, John, Teddy and Bobby — may seem like exemplars of the sex gambols, there were others, many, many others, equally blatant, but much more discreet, who used their powerful positions to exercise the venery.

We might even cite historical precedent. Hamilton, Jefferson and Franklin come to mind, but they are merely the tip of the iceberg. Research on this subject would require two lifetimes to pursue.

Aside from politics, insiders in the nation’s capital always knew that sex, in all its manifestations, straight, gay or whatever as currently cataloged in the millions of porno websites on the net, was the coin also of the federal realm.

As a novelist/observer of the many foibles, sexual and otherwise, of our Washington elite, I have recycled my behind-the-scenes knowledge into many of my Washington novels and my Fiona FitzGerald mystery series which deals with the real skinny of life in the political fast lane where the aphrodisiac of power provides a drug of choice to enhance the libido of both genders.

For years, such libidinous acts were off limits for media sleuths and publicity seeking participants wanting their fifteen minutes of fame, but now that the cover has been removed from the once inviolate pressure cooker, the tasty secret brew has exploded into the soup of commercial packaging and nothing will ever be expunged again.

Either Washington has caught up with the times or the times have caught up with Washington. There is no shame in sexual peccadilloes anymore, providing the participants are of legal age. Indeed, perhaps a subgenre is in the spawning stage when the victims of pedophilia, incest and other aberrations open up their own vast library of secrets to the book trade.

Yes, Washington is all screwed up. But then it always has been.

You’ve spent months, perhaps years, composing your novel. You’ve read and reread it hundreds of times. You’ve rethought it, rewritten it, and revised it, changed characters, dialogue, and plot lines. Writing it is the most important thing in your life. The writing of your novel has absorbed your attention, almost exclusively. Both your conscious and your subconscious mind have been obsessed with it. You have read parts of it to your friends, family, former teachers. Most think it’s wonderful.

You have finally considered it finished. Armed with optimism and self-confidence, you obtain a list of agents on the Internet and begin to canvas agents. You agonize over whether to send your precious manuscript to one agent at a time or to a number of agents. You choose the first option.

Just in case, you send it electronically, unsure of whether or not this is now standard practice. You have high hopes. You are aware of the massive changes in the publishing business, but have chosen to take the traditional path as your first option.

Weeks go by, then months. The agents are, you believe, reading it in the office, passing it around, deciding to take it on. You live on such hopes. Finally you call the agent’s office. They haven’t a clue as to who you are. Somehow, they are reminded and search through the piles of manuscripts in their office, find yours and send you back a form letter, perhaps made to look like an original out of politeness.

Well then, you tell yourself, it is only one agent’s opinion. You send it off to another agent. A letter comes back swiftly, similarly worded. You get bolder, send your manuscript to two agents at a time, then three, then every agent you can find. Nothing happens. “Good luck on getting published,” they tell you. “Not for us.” Sometimes there is a personal, scribbled note that says something nice and you live in its glow for days.

Years go by. You start another novel, but you are less optimistic now, less confident, and unsure. You tell yourself you have not paid enough attention to the marketplace. You begin to analyze what is selling, what is not selling, what is being published. You read books on the bestseller lists and are certain you can do a lot better. You try to use these books as a guide to what is selling and you write accordingly. Nothing helps. You are continuously rejected.

You begin to read various pitches on the Internet about how you can publish your own books and get them marketed on electronic venues. Some sites promise that they can get your book in front of movie producers for a price. Some say they have the magic to make you a successful career novelist for a price, of course. For more of a price, you will be told how best to market your book. You debate the idea and as your pile of rejection letters mount, you give it a try.

You spend money. A book is produced in print on demand format and an e-book is created and placed on every electronic sales venue on the net. Your family buys copies and sends them to friends. It is even reviewed in publications that review self-published books for a price. There is a word or two of praise in the review and you send it around to the media and everybody you know. Unfortunately, there is little or no sales, no afterlife.

Despite your confidence in your ability, despite the fact that you truly believe your novel is certainly worthy of publication, you feel the full impact of rejection and failure. Still, you cannot shake the certainty or your talent. You write another novel. Perhaps a third. Perhaps more. You go through the same process. Again and again you are rejected. You begin to question your ability, your ideas, and your talent. Is it a fantasy, an exercise in unrealistic aspirations? You are becoming embittered. Your dream is crashing.

If you are fortunate, your wife, husband, partner, and family stick by you, continue to encourage your dream, help you keep it alive. Other realities begin to chip away at the dream. You have financial obligations. Your kids are growing up. You are losing out in the job market. Others are moving up in their jobs, while you are falling behind.

You feel lost, adrift. Rejection after rejection has beaten you down. You see this as the end of your world, the end of your hopes and dreams. Your high hopes and self-confidence in your own talent is petering away.

What now?

If you’ve read this far without your stomach congealing, I suppose you are awaiting some prescription offering a magic coping pill. Sorry, there isn’t any available your corner drug store. And you won’t find it here. Luck — that strange, illusive, heaven sent, burst of good fortune-has not fired a missile in your direction.

Not yet.

You have three choices. The first is personal surrender. You’ve been on a fool’s errand following an adolescent dream. Time to throw in the towel and concentrate on your day job. At least you tried. The second choice is postponement. You weren’t ready. You needed more experience of life. But you continue to believe it will come. Some talented people are late bloomers. Give the dream a rest. Wishing won’t make it so. There are enough popular clichés to give you courage.

Now, for your third choice, the clincher. It is not recommended for the faint of heart. Never give up. Never, never, never. It may be impractical, unwise, foolish, pure madness, but if you truly believe in yourself, your talent, your ideas, your calling, your personal mission, why not, as Lewis Carroll wrote, “go on until the end, and then stop.”

To do this requires a monumental ego, total self-confidence in your talent, and an unshakeable belief that you have been anointed with the right stuff. You will require obsessive focus, singleness of purpose, a draconian ruthlessness and total devotion to a belief in your artistic ability. Fancy words, I know, but with the absence of luck, you will need these attributes to sustain you through the process.

What this means for the true novelist is that he or she must continue to soldier on, keep writing, keep trying, taking the increasingly painful hits of rejection after rejection until … well, until someone out there catches on … or doesn’t.

We are all waiting for Godot. Sometimes he comes.

At the outset, let me state unequivocally that I have had a lifetime love affair with the movies. The affair spans the golden age of Hollywood films and as evidence of this heartfelt attachment, I can name most of the actors in black and white films, B movies included.

I inherited this addiction from my mother who would take me with her whenever the movies changed their bill, even in the middle of the week when I should have been doing my homework. Her lure was not only the movie itself but the collection of dishes the theaters would give away free to corral their patrons during the dark days of the depression.

The movie bill in those days consisted of a double feature, news of the day, a cartoon or two, and a minute or two of coming attractions — meaning the pictures that were on deck to be seen in the next few days. There was no popcorn, only a vending machine that would dispense packaged candies for a nickel (about six choices).

Those old birds from the studios who lured you into the movie theaters were the most brashly creative propagandists and advertising geniuses of their day. They built a star system that made gods and goddesses of their actors, slapping their images all over the place, on billboards, fan magazines and gossip columns, and used the mass media with unprecedented skill, verve, and chutzpah.

Indeed, they made you believe that those actors whose love affairs and ‘derring-do’ actually happened to them in real life and seduced you to glimpse into their lurid personal lives, stunted perhaps by the fact that these actors, mostly uneducated and insecure, began to believe that they were the characters put up on that 35-foot screen. Indeed, those movie promoters invented the modern celebrity machine.

They gave away dishes and other items that lured you into the theaters in the middle of the week. They sponsored contests for kids. They coupled the movies with live entertainment like Sinatra, Milton Berle, Martin and Lewis, and many others.

They built faux palaces that made you feel you deserved the importance of entering a baroque castle with lots of gold paint and chandeliers. Remnants remain, of which Radio City Music Hall was the epitome of the era, a relic that has retained its luster but no longer shows movies.

Their advertising in the newspapers was over the top with exaggeration and drum beating bull which to this day continues its legacy of faux praise, much of it bought and paid for.

The language of the lure is still over the top only more so. Ever really read a movie blurb? They are hilarious, extracted from reviews by anyone with a computer and an opinion, but who looks at the source? Some are from the top tier of reviewers from the New York Times and other big city newspapers; others are from magazines, entertainment trade papers, television “critics”, assorted bloggers and movie critic sites where self-proclaimed “reviewers” abound, all with one thing in common: “opinions” hungry to see their critiques quoted and hopeful that their sites attract advertisers.

Here are some samples extracted from newspapers flacking new offerings, which will remain anonymous. I’ll dispense with “Best Picture”, “Best Actor” — which are ubiquitous and the absurdist exaggerations — like the overused “Brilliant”, “Ravishing”, “Remarkable”, “Breathless”, “Imaginative” and the all-purpose “Most” to underline the point.

Then there is the blockbuster word “Masterpiece” and, of course “Winner”, of the various festivals and resumes of directors for past films all embellished with an avalanche of praise words lifted from Mr. Roget’s handy thesaurus. Sometimes the flack writer will get really creative and spew “We’re Too Busy Laughing” or “The Level of Craft is Something to Behold” or “An Erotic Mindbender” or “Thrillingly Hypnotic”, or “Give Us More Like This One”, heaven forbid, and the all-purpose “You Won’t Believe Your Eyes” or “So Good You Will Have to See it Twice.”

For the “save the world” filmmakers, who offer what they believe is life-changing movies, you will find specific hype headlines like “Uncompromising”, “Brave”, “Courageous”, “Fearless”, “Daring”, and that all-purpose word of the righteous activist, “expose.”

Then there are the groups who treat film as a cultural icon and a matter of scholarly inquiry with another cluster of hype words like “classic”, “enduring” and “vintage.”

Of course in today’s world the lure goes beyond mere words. You have to endure a tsunami of advertising if you enter a movie theater on its advertised time entrapped and forced to endure 15 minutes or more of earsplitting commercials, many designed to get you to buy the obesity-encouraging, overpriced menu of life menacing goodies, served in the lobby concessions.

As if this was not enough brainwashing, you still have to endure endless coming attractions, usually eardrum endangering snippets from the latest movie spinoffs of computer games targeting the pre- and early teen set. By the time one gets around to the start of the movie, a half hour or more beyond the published feature time, you are exhausted by the assault and your potential film enjoyment meter has been compromised.

In the golden age of the black and whites, the coming attractions were five minutes long and your concentration on the story being presented on the screen was still fresh and expectant.

There is a sense, even as I write this rant, that the movie auditorium, meaning where groups sitting together in the dark, munching on unhealthy foods while being attacked with endless hype are the last gasp of a desperate industry running out of ideas as they enter an uncertain future.

As I said at the onset, I loved the movies, even the very few being offered today for those of even average intelligence, but I fear a total disenchantment is on its way, unless the moguls come up with a more engaging product for people of all ages and stop trying to overstuff us with all the hype and brainless baloney.