HELLO, DARKNESS

With her latest, Brown (The Crush, 2002) passes fifty-some bongs on the New York Times bestseller list, though her score probably includes paperback reprints as well as hardcovers.

Here, she adapts the plot of Clint Eastwood’s Play Misty for Me, about a late-night California disc jockey whose life is threatened by a listener. Brown bows to Eastwood by having her DJ play the Johnny Mathis classic, “Misty,” but where Clint’s jock was menaced by a murderess, in this version Paris Gibson, a woman who has perfected a late-night voice for her callers and romantic disc-spinning in Austin, Texas, has to deal with a man who calls himself Valentino. He blames Paris’s rotten advice for all of his failures with the ladies, especially his latest, Janey. He’s already made Janey prisoner, raped her bloody (mercifully not described in detail), and plans to murder her in three days, then kill Paris herself for misleading him. The terrified DJ calls for help from her old lover, police psychologist Dean Malloy, but Valentino doesn't even wait three days to kill Janey. Ready for a remake? Play it again, Clint.