Los
Angeles is no stranger to glamor, celebrity—and murder. When Susan Kaplan
moves to L.A. to become a TV writer, she's thrilled to be hired as a writers'
assistant on the well-regarded but low-rated TV series Babbitt & Brooks.
The last thing she expects, however, is that she'd find herself working for the
beautiful yet seriously neurotic Rebecca Saunders, the show's
less-than-competent associate producer who may or may not have gotten the job
by sleeping with Babbitt & Brooks' demanding creator and executive
producer, Ray Goldfarb.
And
Susan definitely doesn't expect to find murdered Rebecca's body in her office
at the studio early one morning. When the police learn that Rebecca torpedoed
Susan's writing career shortly before her death, Susan becomes their number one
suspect. Determined to prove her innocence and find the murderer, Susan
discovers that all her colleagues have secrets they would kill to protect. From
producers to writers to stars, it seems that the hopes and dreams of nearly
everyone associated with the show were being threatened by Rebecca.
Despite
the danger to her own life, Susan remains determined to find Rebecca's killer
and in the process unmasks the dirty little secrets behind the making of a
prime-time television series. She learns that real life behind the camera is far
more dramatic than the fictional one in front of it.
I’m
a lapsed member of Mensa. I can’t afford
the dues right now, but I still qualify for membership. And I’m a writer. So I can usually predict how a book is going
to end, and when I read or watch a mystery, I usually figure out who did it
fairly early on. Not so here. Ms. Seidman kept me guessing until the very
end.
I
rarely call a plot predictable because what’s predictable to me may not be so
to a normal reader. When I was editing I
drove one of my authors nuts. We were
working chapter by chapter and when one ended with a rustle in the grass I
asked in my e-mail if it was a cottonmouth or a copperhead, and how far away
the hero was. She replied, “It’s a
cottonmouth, and you weren’t supposed to know that yet!” Well, the girl was in tall grass in
Mississippi, and it was too early in the book for her to get caught by the bad
guys. That’s how I would have written
it. But I digress.
The
first murder victim seemed so deliciously evil, everyone had motive and
opportunity to kill her. There was even
a pesky extra calling to see if anyone had written him into any future scripts
for the show Could he be the killer who came out of left field and did it? I won’t tell.
Buy the book and find out for yourself.
Length:
258 Pages
Price:
$4.99
Sounds like a good mystery!
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