[In The Changing of the Guard] Richie Hall, a middle-aged English actor whose career and private life are on the decline, comes to Paris to star in a film based on the French Revolution. While Richie's egocentricity drives everyone around him wild, few realize how really insecure he is. Lamentable as the loss of youth may be, we are unmoved by this story. Reason: there is no propelling movement and even the writing is stagnant. Ehle frequently refers to actual celebrities in the attempt to create a realistic milieu. However this device fails because his characters have no substance of their own. The novel is on the whole a rather tiresome, humorless pastiche—a filmland fantasy that is lifeless and dull.