Death By Hollywood
- Book Review,
by Steven Bochco
From Publishers Weekly
This clever debut novel by the creator of Hill St. Blues, NYPD Blue and other hit TV shows is as smooth and rich as the name-brand Chardonnays preferred by many of the book's fabulously conflicted Tinseltown characters. Narrator Eddie Jelko, an A-level agent, sets the stage by declaring, "It's a tough town and a tough business, and if you don't watch your step either one'll kill you, which I guess is what this story is actually about." Eddie's screenwriter client Bobby Newman's career is fading fast: he can't get a handle on a long-overdue screenplay, his drinking is out of control and his wife is having an affair with a sleazebag director. One drunken evening, Bobby sits down with his Bushnell telescope and spies on a couple making love in a nearby house. When they've finished, they begin to argue, and the woman, whom Bobby recognizes as a wealthy socialite, hauls off and kills her lover with an acting trophy. In any other town, Bobby would report the crime, but instead he sees it as both the solution to his writer's block and a vehicle to the top of the Hollywood heap. The story proceeds apace; the twists and turns are predictable but amusing, the agent jokes are funny and the O. Henry-style ending ties everything up with an attractive bow. A publisher's letter and star-treatment interview with Bochco attempt to add weight to this pleasing, slick-as-silk fiction, but there's no need for such addenda. The book is fast, fun, sexy and delivers plenty of inside dope on movie stars and their wacky lives. That's enough for millions of readers who aren't interested in slogging their way through War and Peace. Relax, guys, it's gonna be a hit.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From AudioFile
Bobby Newman, Hollywood screenwriter, has writer's block--until he witnesses a gruesome murder. He knows a good story when he sees one, so he puts the event into a script. When the police get involved, the plot takes off. Dennis Franz reads in matter-of-fact tones, portraying the dog-eat-dog competition of the film industry and highlighting the underside of its glamour. As Newman, his agent, and the police converge, Franz shines a light on a heartless world. M.B.K. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Booklist
This one has insider written all over it. A crime novel about a screenwriter written by a legendary screenwriter and producer of cop shows (Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue). The premise works some of the same soil as the film Adaptation: a screenwriter witnesses a murder and, instead of telling the police, makes friends with the killer and writes a screenplay about the crime--from the inside, directing events in real life and then adapting them to his script. Reality and adaptation come into conflict, of course, leaving the writer caught in a kind of limbo between life on the page and in the world. It doesn't help that a Columbo-like cop (Bochco's first success was as a writer for the Peter Falk series) has his own ideas about how the screenplay should be developed. Bochco stage-manages the plot trickery effectively, and he makes the most of his crotchety narrator, agent Eddie Jelko, whose ongoing commentary on Hollywood pretensions is a phlegmatic delight ("Linda Paulson's around 40 years old, except for her nose, which is around 22, and her tits, which are 12"). The story's cinematic underpinnings are a little too evident, however: character development is sketchy at best, and the action zooms from scene to scene as if Bochco was worried about finishing each chapter before the light ran out. Still, it's all good fun, especially for Hollywood watchers. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“Hilarious and philosophical . . . His first novel, a murder mystery, has the same dark humor and cynical insider’s take as the fiction of Elmore Leonard.”
—People
“With a deft plot, an insider’s eye, and considerable charm, Steven Bochco resurrects everything we loved about Columbo into his own brand of Hollywood Murder Mystery. Death by Hollywood left me laughing out loud.”
—ROBERT CRAIS
“Slick-as-silk fiction . . . The book is fast, fun, sexy, and delivers plenty of inside dope on movie stars and their wacky lives. . . . As smooth and rich as the name-brand Chardonnays preferred by many of the book’s fabulously conflicted Tinseltown characters.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A vulgar, sex-filled romp—in the best sense: good, nasty fun.”
—Kirkus Reviews
**MORE QUOTES TK**
“It is obvious . . . that Bochco understands how ‘the business’ works. . . . the sting of truth.”
—Los Angeles Times
Review
?Hilarious and philosophical . . . His first novel, a murder mystery, has the same dark humor and cynical insider?s take as the fiction of Elmore Leonard.?
?People
?With a deft plot, an insider?s eye, and considerable charm, Steven Bochco resurrects everything we loved about Columbo into his own brand of Hollywood Murder Mystery. Death by Hollywood left me laughing out loud.?
?ROBERT CRAIS
?Slick-as-silk fiction . . . The book is fast, fun, sexy, and delivers plenty of inside dope on movie stars and their wacky lives. . . . As smooth and rich as the name-brand Chardonnays preferred by many of the book?s fabulously conflicted Tinseltown characters.?
?Publishers Weekly
?A vulgar, sex-filled romp?in the best sense: good, nasty fun.?
?Kirkus Reviews
**MORE QUOTES TK**
?It is obvious . . . that Bochco understands how ?the business? works. . . . the sting of truth.?
?Los Angeles Times
Book Description
From the acclaimed co-creator of Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, Death by Hollywood is a suspenseful, shocking, and darkly comic crime novel about a screenwriter, a billionaire's wife, a murder, and, of course, a cop.
"There used to be a writer by the name of Merle Miller, who wrote that people in Hollywood are always touching you--not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive."
So begins this seductive and surprising novel by two-time Edgar Award–winning writer Steven Bochco, in which a down-on-his-luck screenwriter named Bobby Newman tries to turn a brutal murder into his next movie payday.
One day, while spying on his Hollywood Hills neighbors through his $4,000 Bushnell XR90 electronic telescope, Bobby sees a beautiful socialite making love to a handsome Latin actor named Ramon. When their pillow talk takes a turn for the ugly, Bobby watches in horror as the woman bludgeons her lover to death with his own acting trophy. Deciding to write about it instead of reporting it to the cops, Bobby insinuates himself into Detective Dennis Farentino’s murder investigation, forging an unusual friendship with the cop that turns out to be more complex than either of them had bargained for. Before long, Bobby has dragged the detective, his estranged wife, his lover, and his agent into a Hollywood fun-house hall of mirrors, where only the most manipulative player will survive.
Savvy, funny, sexy, and streetwise, Death by Hollywood is the tale Steven Bochco couldn't tell on television. It is the work of an ingenious storyteller, certain to enthrall readers from beginning to end.
From the Hardcover edition.
From the Inside Flap
From the acclaimed co-creator of Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and NYPD Blue, Death by Hollywood is a suspenseful, shocking, and darkly comic crime novel about a screenwriter, a billionaire’s wife, a murder, and, of course, a cop.
“There used to be a writer by the name of Merle Miller, who wrote that people in Hollywood are always touching you – not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive”
So begins this seductive and surprising novel by two-time Edgar Award-winning writer Steven Bochco, in which a down-on-his-luck screenwriter named Bobby Newman tries to turn a brutal murder into his next movie payday.
One day, while spying on his Hollywood Hills neighbors through his $4,000 Bushnell XR90 electronic telescope, Bobby sees a beautiful woman making love to a handsome Latin actor named Ramon. When their pillow talk takes a turn for the ugly, Bobby watches in horror as the woman bludgeons her lover to death with his own acting trophy. Deciding to write about it instead of reporting it to the cops, Bobby insinuates himself into Detective Dennis Farentino’s murder investigation, forging an unusual friendship with the cop that turns out to be more complex than either of them had bargained for. Before long, Bobby has dragged the detective, his estranged wife, his lover, and his agent into a Hollywood funhouse hall of mirrors, where only the most manipulative player will survive.
Savvy, funny, sexy, and streetwise, Death By Hollywood is the tale Steven Bochco couldn’t tell on television. It is the work of an ingenious storyteller, certain to enthrall readers from beginning to end.
From the Back Cover
"Death by Hollywood heralds a devastatingly funny new voice in fiction. Steven Bochco takes us on a twisty and dark murder investigation, hitting producers, writers, actors, and cops squarely below the belt, where, as you all know, Hollywood resides. This is a book you can’t put down. If Bochco doesn't write another one soon, I'll personally drive over to his house and start begging. A classic."
--Stephen J. Cannell
"A vulgar, sex-filled romp—in the best sense: good, nasty fun."
--Kirkus Reviews
From the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Steven Bochco is the winner of ten Emmy Awards—six for Hill Street Blues, three for L.A. Law, and one for NYPD Blue, now in its eleventh year on ABC. In 1996, he was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Television Hall of Fame and was the first television writer/producer to receive the Writers Guild Career Achievement Award and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Fellowship Award for his outstanding contribution to his craft. The Mystery Writers of America have honored him with a Raven Award for lifetime achievement as well as two Edgar Awards. He lives in Los Angeles.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER 1
There used to be a writer by the name of merle Miller, who wrote that people in Hollywood are always touching you—not because they like you, but because they want to see how soft you are before they eat you alive. He was right. It’s a tough town and a tough business, and if you don’t watch your step, either one’ll kill you, which I guess is what this story is actually about.
By way of formal introduction, my name is Eddie Jelko, and I’m an agent. I represent screenwriters, primarily, and a few important directors. I used to represent actors when I first started in the business almost twenty years ago, but it didn’t take me long to figure out that actors are crazy. They tend to be paranoid, narcissistic, and, in general, oblivious to the needs and feelings of others. The good news is, they can also be charming, seductive, charismatic, and, in the case of the very few, so genuinely gifted that simply being in their presence is a privilege. That said, celebrity, for the ego-challenged, can be as destructive as heroin. A little is too much, as they say, and too much is never enough.
In my naïveté, I thought writers and directors would be different. Fat chance. They’re just as loony. In fact, the entertainment industry as a whole is one giant dysfunctional family. Everyone’s terrified—of their own failure, or of everyone else’s success—and as a general rule, you can assume that everyone lies about everything. (Have you ever looked at an actor’s résumé—at the bottom, under special skills? Speaks three languages. Black belt in martial arts. Rides horses and motorcycles. Juggling and acrobatics. The truth is, you’re lucky if they can drive a fucking car.)
And agents? By and large, we’re nothing more than well-paid pimps who represent our pooched-out clients as if they’re beautiful young virgins, offering them up to a bunch of jaded johns who know better, but these are the only whores in town. As the saying goes, denial is not a river in Egypt. It’s a river in Hollywood, and it runs deep, and brown.
The story I want to tell you involves, among other things, a screenwriter whose career is fading out more than it’s fading in, a billionaire’s wife, and a murder—which means, of course, there’s also a cop. Plus, the story has one other thing going for it. It’s true.
Would I lie to you?
From the Hardcover edition.
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