Drama of family tensions

Me Me Me, screams the title of this book, as do most of the characters you'll find in it. Nearly all of them are actors, and they need an audience. Twenty-four hours a day. Going through the motions of life on screen and stage for our entertainment, they receive the rapt attention and adulation of the world. But offstage, in much less flattering close-up, these same stars carry on trying to steal the show.

So, at least, says David Huggins's third novel, which delves with terrifying depth into the superhuman egos of actors, and the impact of this extraordinary selfishness on their families and friends. For Ralph Tait, the narrator, it's a particularly pressing problem. His whole family - including himself - are players of one sort or another. His grandfather Donald is a legend of the silver screen, his father Larry's TV series seems to run and run, and his aunt has just taken on the role of Lady Macbeth. Particularly problematic for Ralph is the fact that his own experimental theatre company has just gone bankrupt following his 30th birthday. With things in London at a standstill, he jumps at the chance to go to Los Angeles to help his grandfather finish his autobiography

On arrival, though, he realises that the text is going to need some serious work: it consists of Donald's rambling dictations to various secretaries over the years, and runs to thousands of disordered pages.

The first half of Me Me Me follows events at Donald Tait's huge house in LA, as Ralph gets to grips with his grandpa's manuscript, and becomes embroiled in all-too-familiar wrangles with the rest of his luvvie relations once again. We hear the fractured history of the Tait clan: their multiple marriages, sudden successes, petty rivalries, and endlessly repeated dinner-party stories. A mildly acerbic satire of Hollywood manners slowly unfolds, peppered with brilliant moments of black comedy.

Everyone is stunned, then secretly horrified, when the 76-year-old Donald announces his engagement to his twenty-something housekeeper, Julie. But when he then disappears without a trace several chapters later, the story suddenly shifts from sharp comedy to deadly serious drama. Fuelled by paranoia and suspicion of his family (as actors, they're all perfectly trained liars), Ralph smells a possible murder and starts sleuthing.

In his first two novels, The Big Kiss and Luxury Amnesia, Huggins freely mixed comedy and thrills. This fusion of laughter and suspense - owing much to funny crime writers like Carl Hiaasen or Christopher Brookmyre - is tricky, but can work fantastically well, as we see so often in the cinema (just watch any Tarantino film). Here, though, we have a clunky transition from one genre to another. As a result, Me Me Me ends up feeling like two different books.

Apart from this rather abrupt approach to plotting, there are some wonderful moments. Huggins sketches characters and scenarios with superb linguistic wit, and the treatment of his theme is utterly merciless. A glance at the author's real-life family tree, though, makes the laughs seem far less innocent. It turns out that his mother is an actor (Anna Massey), as were his father (Jeremy Brett), uncle (Daniel Massey) and grandparents (Raymond Massey and Adrianne Allen). All of which can't help but make you wonder whether this is not so much a novel as a semi-autobiographical bid to take centre-stage at long last.