Death by Hollywood

A Novel

By: Steven Bochco

Narrated by: Charles Kahlenberg

In his sizzling first novel, the creator of L.A. Law and NYPD Blue plunges a down-on-his-luck Hollywood writer into the thick of a murder investigation, which he uses to get better material for his screenplay. When Bobby Newman spies upon his neighbors one day through his $4,000 telescope, he sees a beautiful woman making love to a handsome actor named Ramon. But when their pillow talk turns sour, Bobby watches as she bludgeons her lover to death with his own acting trophy. Instead of reporting it to the police, Bobby decides to write about it and to turn investigator himself. But he does more than sneak into the dead man's house and steal incriminating video tapes. In this Hollywood funhouse, only the most manipulative will survive.©2003 Steven Bochco (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc., Published by Arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"This clever debut novel...is fast, fun, sexy and delivers plenty of inside dope on movie stars and their wacky lives." (Publishers Weekly)

A fun read, well narrated

I enjoyed this book--well paced, interesting twists at the end. Nothing profound or complex, just fun.

Narrator was excellent too, with good range of emotion reflected in the reading.

There's a better version...

This is a fun book and a okay reading, but there's a version on CD read by Dennis Franz that's a lot better. He's much more expressive.

Obscene

For a writer of Bochco’s ability, the language was unnecessarily obscene. While it was interesting to get an inside view of Hollywood’s machinations, the language was most distasteful. I could not finish it.