Inter­na­tion­al­ly best­selling author Jesse Keller­man returns with Pot­boil­er, a pierc­ing and hilar­i­ous com­men­tary on the mod­ern block­buster thriller. Arthur Pfef­fer­ko­rn is a has-been, or per­haps a nev­er-was: a mid­dle-aged col­lege pro­fes­sor with long-dead lit­er­ary aspi­ra­tions. When his old­est friend, best­selling thriller writer William de Val­lèe, is lost at sea, Pfef­fer­ko­rn is torn between envy and grief, for de Val­lèe not only out­shone Pfef­fer­ko­rn pro­fes­sion­al­ly, but mar­ried the woman Pfef­fer­ko­rn loved. Pfefferkorn’s deci­sion to recon­nect with de Vallèe’s wid­ow sets in motion a sur­re­al chain of events, plung­ing him into a shad­owy realm of dou­ble cross­es and intrigue, a world where no one can be trust­ed – and noth­ing can be tak­en seriously.