FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Detective Shane Scully is back in the good graces of the LAPD, hailed as a hero after bringing down a deadly gang of rogue cops in the The Viking Funeral. At a glamorous Hollywood party with his new wife, Alexa, Shane overhears a famous producer make a suspicious remark about the strange deaths of his two ex-wives. Is he serious or merely joking around with his coterie of hangers-on? This becomes more than just police business, because the party is to celebrate the engagement of the producer to Alexa's closest friend." Against his wife's wishes, Shane begins to look into this heavy-hitter's past. At the same time, he becomes aware of a high-profile wiseguy's attempt to control Hollywood's unions. He initiates an elaborate and expensive sting operation, actually setting up a phony production company to produce a bogus movie at LAPD expense. The plan is to draw the starstruck wiseguy into revealing his real purpose for coming to L.A. But before long, the overbudgeted movie is rocketing into production. Tough, streetwise Scully, who thought he'd seen just about everything, is astounded by the distorted egos and total insanity of the movie business, and while he struggles to keep his sting operation from spinning wildly out of control, he and Alexa find themselves and Shane's teenaged son, Chooch, involved in something much bigger than they had ever imagined, something that puts all their lives on the line.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

It's tough to tell the hardened criminals from the corrupt Tinseltown players in Cannell's latest (after The Viking Funeral), an overplotted yet entertaining detective novel that follows L.A. gumshoe Shane Scully and his gorgeous wife, Alexa, as they try to trap a mobster by sponsoring a high-profile movie. The fun starts when Scully runs into a small-time hood he once busted, Nicky Marcella, who is running a film studio that turns out to be a thinly veiled scam to lure beautiful, scantily clad women into phony auditions. But Scully also discovers a link between Marcella and major mob player "Champagne" Dennis Valentine, and after digging around a bit Scully learns that Valentine is making a major push to take over the various low-level Hollywood unions. Scully uses his relationship with Marcella to cozy up to Valentine, then concocts a sting operation to bust the mobster by having the LAPD finance a phony film and catch Valentine in the act. The plotting gets too busy when Cannell introduces a gang war subplot that features Scully's adopted Hispanic son, Cooch, whose efforts to escape gang life fail when his girlfriend is kidnapped during a battle between several gangs over a major heroin shipment. Cannell, creator of such TV shows as The A Team, clearly knows the ins and outs of the entertainment industry, and the detective story, with its wry, subtle humor, doubles as a Hollywood satire. Most of the cops-and-robbers sequences hit the mark as well, and the well-drawn characters and keen observations on the similarities between Hollywood and the mafia make this a winner. Author tour. (Jan.)

AudioFile

Fans of TV's "Rockford Files" will remember Stephen J. Cannell as that show's creator and will find the plot of this new thriller in that show's popular mold. L.A. cop Shane Scully is investigating a prostitute's murder, a mobster's incursion into Hollywood unions, a brewing drug war, and a producer's mysterious past. They all come together when he puts a sting in motion and a bogus movie threatens to unravel all his careful planning. Narrator Paul Michael brings a hint of grit into the amiable proceedings, keeping the listener interested until all the balls Shane finds himself juggling fall into place. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Cop turns movie mogul to foil the Mafia, in a dopey but likable thriller by the man who made his bones with The Rockford Files.

LAPD Sergeant Shane Scully, newly married and happy as a clam at the start of his third adventure (The Viking Funeral, 2002, etc.), should have taken just one look at Nicky Marcella and rousted him again. But that's hindsight. Truth is, Scully has an almost collegial affection for the little crook-never really hard-core, mostly small-change scams and cons-and, besides, as Nicky's quick to inform him, he's "found Jesus" and been redeemed. In addition, he's found showbiz: a flourishing career as a Hollywood producer, he says, flashing the pertinent business card: "Cine-Roma, Nicholas Marcella, C.E.O." Scully is skeptical, of course, but, tickled as always by Nicky, agrees to do him a favor. A young actress named Carol White has become hard to locate, which is too bad, since Nicky has the perfect role for her in a new film he's casting. Could Scully just run her through the LAPD's computers? Such a small thing, the work of an hour maybe, Scully couldn't possibly know what complexities were to be born therefrom-that it would plunge him smack into the middle of a violent and bloody gang war, bring him into confrontation with a vicious and vengeful Mafia don, and partner him with Nicky in a multimillion-dollar deal so authentically hot that "half the [blanking] town wants a piece." Before he's out from under, though, Scully has ample opportunity to prove how "Hollywood tough" he is. As for Nicky-well, it just may be a star is born.

Once again, veteran writer/TV producer Cannell has concocted his special brand of reader candy. If you believe a word of it, there'sthis bridge you might be interested in.