Steve Weinberg
Decade after decade, my fellow investigative journalist amazed me with his newspaper exposes, and during the same years, his deeply researched nonfiction books, some of which got adapted for television. But, until his retirement from the newspaper, Thomas Maier never fulfilled his desire to publish a novel. Well, consider that desire accomplished in 2024. Enthusiastically recommended.
M. J. Moore
Thomas Maier is in the tradition of iconic New York newspaper writers like Pete Hamill and Jimmy Breslin, whose novels were as addictive as their vivid columns. Maier blends the pacing of Arthur Conan Doyle with the cinematic flourishes of David Lynch. Montauk to Manhattan is a dizzying New York story.
Claudia Copquin
Yet another captivating work by Thomas Maier, who masterfully shares here his unique insider-lens on Hollywood, politics, crime, media and our often scandalous home base, Long Island.
Kirkus Reviews
2024-05-04
A down-on-his-luck New York newspaperman hoping to make it big via a lavish TV adaptation of his novel stumbles into controversy.
Jack Denton’s fact-based book, The Life Line—about railroad tycoon Austin Corbin’s theft of tribal land from the Montaukett Indians on eastern Long Island in the 1880s—hasn’t sold many copies. But the story of Corbin’s unscrupulous efforts to build a port in Montauk for “Mile a Minute” trains to Manhattan has captured the interest of Max Kirkland, a “genius” director with uncontrollable Harvey Weinstein–like traits. Hired as a consultant on the project, Denton attends location shoots, stargazes, frets over changes in his narrative, and sleeps with a disgruntled actress who promptly disappears. For Kirkland, her vanishing is the least of his worries. The Montaukett community is up in arms over the casting of a white actor to play the tribal hero and other cultural offenses. And Denton, who is covering the rise of Donald Trump and dealing with a busted marriage, has other fish to fry. While the individual pieces of Maier’s novel unfold agreeably enough—even if Denton’s accounts of the filming go on too long—they never come together in a meaningful way. And the Denton character has a serious credibility problem. He boasts about the awards he’s won for his exposés but never reveals any of the essential qualities he would need to be a standout reporter, including basic smarts. “Covering Trump for the paper these days has really made me think—where is this country going…?” Ya think?
A novel set in “Hollywood East” that never figures out which direction to go.
