Follow LA Observed on Twitter here
The publisher of a book that asserts the Pakistan government was behind the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl is upset with the L.A. Times Book Review. Melville House founder Dennis Johnson chose Page Six, the gossip column at the New York Post, as his venue to get even. Johnson says the review of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, the book by French journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy, was taken away from an assigned reveiewer and given to a critic of Pakistan who was on record as disliking the book. Further, Johnson says there is history because LAT Book Review editor Steve Wasserman had been criticized in a previous Melville House book, A Reader's Manifesto. Wasserman says, however, he has never heard of the second book, and explains to Page Six how the review came about. (Tip from Romenesko)
Update 10:50 a.m.: Carlin Romano, the reviewer whose good review was supposedly yanked, writes to Romenesko that Page Six was "sold a bill of goods" by Johnson. The story is "unfair and wrong," Romano says.
Update 11:10 a.m.: Joseph at Joyrides Without Maps recalls an encounter with Johnson that makes him wonder.