Jim Berkin

Wagstaff and Meatballs Jim Berkin

All secret agents should be like Groucho Marx. Meet "Professor Wagstaff" - freelance intelligence operative - expert on everything and all around wisecracking nudnik. He makes random happenings into true Jungian synchronicities, matches them up to the endless storehouse of pop culture narratives in his overloaded brain... songs, movies, television, art... and follows those narratives wherever they lead... usually to trouble. On his way back to Providence for a college reunion weekend, Wagstaff saves the life of an art professor who turns out to be the son of a longtime Rhode Island Mafia chief. From there, our mix of Sherlock, Bond and Groucho concocts a trail through feuding mob factions, old college friends and rivals, a long lost Caravaggio masterpiece, and the ecstasies of Rhode Island cuisine. As bodies begin to pile up, Wagstaff realizes the stakes are higher than who will run the local bookmaking rackets, and the flirtations from the Don's daughter might literally be playing with fire... which means, once again, it's time for another edition of "You Bet Your Life!"