Appearing nightly: Las Vegas’s newest star and the country’s most ring-a-ding-ding impressionist, Jimmy Wynn! For his first novel, Jason Anderson has created a sort of parallel-universe Kennedy era (known here as the “Cannon era,” after beloved President Cannon). Wynn is a Rat Packish star of the 1960s who has scaled the industry heights with his uncanny, sidesplitting impressions of the President. By 1963, he is playing the top hotels and chummy with Frank Sinatra and his mobster associates. Even President Cannon adores his act.

But when the president is struck down by an assassin’s bullet, Wynn’s career is, as they say, kaput. He drifts out of the spotlight and into silence.

Forty years later, Nathan, a Toronto boy trying to make it in New York as a freelance writer, stumbles across one of Wynn’s old comedy LPs. A light goes on: why not track down Wynn, write a portrait of the old casino days, and uncover some dynamite material about the president? God knows there’s enough interest in the slain hero – there’s even a successful magazine devoted to keeping the presidential flame burning.

Nervy, funny Showbiz is as flash as a pinkie ring and as sharp as a sharkskin suit. It also has heart, because Anderson has made us care about the two main characters, both of whom are afflicted with showbiz anxiety. We like Jimmy Wynn – so much so that we practically acquire an ulcer on his behalf – and we’re entertained by Nathan and his slightly sad-sack quest to discover the truth about a notorious faker.

Anderson’s mimicry of the Camelot years is flawless, and there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in spotting the real-life notables who have walk-on parts under other names (including Roger Corman, the Shaggs, and Abraham Zapruder). If anything, the book is too much – too prodigious, and a mite too long. By the end of Showbiz, when Nathan and the newly brought-to-light Wynn are hiding out in Niagara Falls, seeking refuge in a Canadian-themed revue for American tourists, we in the audience are still applauding, but blinking a little at all that rapid-fire talent, and ready for the performers to take a bow.