The Bequest

by Mike Farris

In the wake of a series of flops, two-time Oscar-winning actress Teri Squire’s career is in a nosedive. She needs to find a great screenplay to fuel her comeback, but no working screenwriter wants to commit a masterpiece to someone who is box office poison. No one, that is, except a despondent and unproduced writer who bequeaths his last script to Teri in his will then plunges off a cliff along the Big Sur coastline of California. In desperation, Teri accepts the bequest—and discovers the script is brilliant. After turning it over to her production team, and with the hype surrounding the circumstances of the writer’s death, the movie is on target for a blockbuster opening weekend that promises to resurrect Teri’s career—until a mysterious stranger shows up at her doorstep and casts doubt on what really happened that night at Big Sur. As her comeback descends into chaos, Teri finds herself as the prime suspect in a bizarre murder.

334 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 29, 2013

About the author

MIKE FARRIS is a 1983 cum laude graduate of Texas Tech University School of Law, where he was an associate editor on the Texas Tech Law Review and was inducted into the prestigious Order of the Coif. Mike joined the Dallas firm of Vincent Lopez Serafino Jenevein, P.C., as Of Counsel in 2010, where his practice includes complex commercial litigation as well as entertainment law, focusing on the movie and publishing industries.
As a literary agent, Mike has placed several award-winning novels for publication, including Balaam Gimble’s Gumption by Mike Nichols, winner of the Texas Institute of Letters John Bloom Humor Award, and Sheldon Russell’s Dreams to Dust: A Tale of the Oklahoma Land Rush, winner of the Langum Prize for Excellence in American Historical Fiction. Mike also represents various university presses and has successfully placed subsidiary rights to their published books, including negotiating the sale of movie rights to producers and Hollywood studios.
Mike was the 2014 Chair of the Dallas Bar’s Sports and Entertainment Law Section, after serving as Vice-Chair in 2011 and previously serving as Chair in 2012 and 2009. He is also the editor of the State Bar of Texas Entertainment and Sports Law Journal and is an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas in its Sports & Entertainment Management MBA program, where he serves on the Sports & Entertainment Advisory Board. He has taught trial advocacy as an adjunct professor at Texas Wesleyan University Law School and creative writing at Richland College in Dallas.
Mike is much in demand as a presenter at writers’ conferences around the country, speaking on topics ranging from legal issues for writers and understanding publishing contracts to principles of cinematic storytelling. He created and taught a seminar sponsored by the Dallas Bar’s Sports and Entertainment Law Section entitled Beyond Briefs: Other Forms of Fiction Writing for Lawyers, and is a regular presenter at the La Jolla Writers Conference. He has taught seminars on the art and craft of adapting source material into screenplays, and has adapted the novels of Air Force U-2 pilot-turned-New York Times-best-selling novelist Patrick A. Davis (novels adapted are The Passenger and A Long Day for Dying), as well as the award-winning novel Balaam Gimble’s Gumption, by Mike Nichols, which was produced as a short film by Dallas’s Blue Logic Productions. As a screenwriter, he is a multi-time semifinalist in the Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting and the Page International Screenwriting Awards. In 2014, his script The Catch was a Nicholl semifinalist, placing it in the top 3% out of 7,511 entries.
As a book writer, Mike collaborated with former ABC-TV anchorman Murphy Martin to write Martin’s memoir of his years in journalism, entitled Front Row Seat: A Veteran Reporter Relives the Four Decades That Reshaped America (Eakin Press). In 2009, the University of Oklahoma Press released Call Me Lucky: A Texan in Hollywood, Mike’s collaboration with rodeo cowboy-turned-actor/producer/director Robert Hinkle on Hinkle’s memoir of his years in show business. He is also the author of five published novels: Kanaka Blues (Savant Books), Manifest Intent (Savant Books), Rules of Privilege (Savant Books), The Bequest (Stairway Press), and Wrongful Termination (Untreed Reads). His thriller Every Pig Got a Saturday is set for a winter 2014-2015 release from John M. Hardy Press.

Reviews

[P Karr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't enjoyed a thriller so much in a while..
this book will catch your attention on page 1 and hold it till the very end..

great candidate for being made into a movie..and is about a story being made into a movie!

I will be writing a detailed review soon on my blog..

[Deborah (debbishdotcom) · Rating 3 out of 5]

We meet Leland Crowell just before he throws himself off a cliff. A wannabe screenwriter, Leland has bequeathed his final screenplay to the once-famous actress, Teri Squire who - despite two Oscars - is about to be dumped by her agents after a series of flops.

Teri's uninterested in the strange bequest which is handed to her by Leland's rather odd mother Annemarie, but after the media shows some interest in the story she realises it may turn her flagging career around.

Two years later and Teri's on 'The Precipice' of a comeback, thanks to Leland's screenplay of the same name (hee hee), when a man appears claiming to be the supposedly-dead Leland and wanting his share of the action.

Things get complicated when the movie's (somewhat unsavory) investors show they're determined to let nothing get in the way of their profits.

I mostly enjoyed this novel. In fact, I read it in a sitting. There's lots of action which keeps the novel moving at a quick pace. The myriad of characters also add some texture to the plot. I was also sufficiently intrigued about Teri's backstory to want to keep reading.

**** SPOILER!!!! - the 'two' baddies seemed a bit over-the-top and I would have been happy if there'd just been one unfolding plot to follow (ie. the screenplay and its repercussions). ****

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fantastic story with enough twists to keep even the most seasoned reader thinking what the heck? Wonderful characters and so many back issues that you can't turn the pages fast enough. If you are a thriller reader you'll love this, if you aren't into the thrill, this is a good one to wet your appetite.

[Steven White · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok

This story was slow in places. I thought a couple of the characters were unnecessary. I haven't read anything else by this author so I gave it 3 stars.

[Billy J Gilliam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unbelievable Plot Spell Doom

I read this tale expecting an exciting who funniest. Alas, I was to be disappointed. An unbelievable plot and characters sunk the novel.