I Was a Client of Melanie Mills - Part I

Here is an honest-to-god "truth is stranger than fiction" story that surely must stand alone in the history of artist/agent relations. Melanie Mills (aka Elisabeth Von Hullesem, her true name, along with almost 20 other aliases, one of which - Linda Ray or something like that - was a published novelist) was for a short year or so my literary agent. Ah but she was so much more! So before I go any further, a caveat: I make no claim that my accounting of Ms. Von Hullessem's expoits are factually correct, nor do I endeavor to chronicle her sordid history. Because what I saw of her, and what happened between us, is plenty. More than enough. And though it may leave you, the reader, wanting more, it won't be coming from me. As I said, I am sated. Perhaps the periphery where I stood was about as much real-life weirdness as I could handle. Perhaps the remote chance that she got the idea to do what she did from the fictional events in the novel she was representing for me is too much responsibility. If I thought just a few of my gentle readers were stupid enough to take my stories as some sort of guide to reaping fame (be it behind bars or otherwise) and fortune , I would put down the pen and stick with the brush and the stringed instruments. But the truth is that Melanie Mills, after having read my novel, "Hack", (to be published Spring 2012, Harper-Davis Publishers) about a painter faking his own death to drive up the value of his work, did shortly thereafter mysteriously die in a car crash in Germany, only to show up in Canada a few years later. Coincidence? Cause and effect? I'll leave that for you to decide after you've heard the whole story. So stay tuned. It just gets more bizarre.