Pull Focus

A Novel

By: Helen Walsh

Narrated by: Shannon Blanchet

“Part Real Housewives, part grown-up Nancy Drew.” (Missy Marston, author of Bad Ideas)

When Jane’s partner goes missing she needs to find out if he’s in danger while also contending with the politics of a large international film festival: Hollywood power brokers, Russian oil speculators, Chinese propagandists, and a board chair who seemingly has it out for her.

Jane has been appointed interim director of the Worldwide Toronto Film Festival after her boss has been removed for sexual harassment. Knives are out all around her, as factions within the community want to see her fail. At the same time, her partner, a fund manager, has disappeared, and strange women appear, uttering threats about misused funds. Yet the show must go on. As Jane struggles to juggle all the balls she’s been handed and survive in one piece, she discovers unlikely allies and finds that she’s stronger than she thinks.

©2021 Helen Walsh (P)2021 ECW Press

Critic reviews

“With bated breath, I fell deeper and deeper into the complex and intricate mystery so artfully created by Helen Walsh. Jane’s world felt both familiar and unlike one I’d ever seen before. Pull Focus is like a shot of adrenaline…with every page, you keep wanting more.” (Deepa Mehta, film writer and director)

“In the end, I couldn’t put this novel down. Pull Focus is a propulsive mystery of financial machinations, international malfeasance, and sexual impropriety, but it starts off deceptively, as a sardonic romp among film festival glitterati. The multi-talented woman at the heart of the whirlwind needs to smooth-talk arts board members, play tough with dangerous scoundrels, and manage all of this in the midst of romantic convulsions.” (Antanas Sileika, author of Provisionally Yours)

“Part Real Housewives, part grown-up Nancy Drew, Pull Focus gleefully skewers all players in the international film scene while deftly unspooling a good old-fashioned thriller. Walsh creates a world of glamourous parties, dirty money, and weaponized sex.” (Missy Marston, author of Bad Ideas)

“A spellbinding debut from Helen Walsh, Pull Focus is a tense, sexy, emotionally charged thriller. Jane, its resourceful, outspoken, often witty central character will not allow herself to be defeated by the dangerous forces that conspire to end her career and, perhaps, her life.” (Anna Porter, author of Deceptions)