cover image Beverly Hills Butler

Beverly Hills Butler

Ian Ross. Trafalgar Square Publishing, $23.95 (181pp) ISBN 978-0-434-65276-1

When British entrepreneur Paul Shaw goes broke and loses their house, his angry wife takes the kids home to her mother. Shaw heads for America, hoping to make a fortune with the $10,000 he salvaged from his bankruptcy, but instead loses it all in a series of comic misadventures that climax in his unsuccessful attempt to put together a movie deal in Hollywood. His British accent lands him a job as butler in a weird Beverly Hills household that turns out to be the home of the producer who killed his deal--a situation whose considerable comic potential is squandered on the predictable actions of stereotypical characters. (The producer makes movies but hates art; his wife is a dilettante; their children and all their acquaintances are overindulged louts.) Ross ( Rocking the Boat ) was himself a Beverly Hills butler for four years, but his humor, a blend of P. G. Wodehouse and the screwball film comedies of the 1930s, doesn't work as a response to contemporary reality. The novel essentially chronicles the usual series of social and family disasters, and it's no surprise when order is restored at the very end. ( Mar. )