Death by Hollywood

Rating:
Summary: Bochco's first mystery novel is an easy and enjoyable read
Review: Steven Bochco, a 10-time Emmy winner for his work on Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law and NYPD Blue, has a deserved reputation for turning out story lines and characters that grab audiences in multiple ways. As a television producer and writer, Bochco has never feared moving into uncharted territory. Now in his first mystery novel, DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD, Bochco has brought to the printed page many of the same skills he has delivered to television audiences for countless years.

Bochco acknowledges that DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD had its inception as a screenplay. In many respects the book reads in that fashion with a quickly moving plot, limited dialogue and short scenes that on the printed page become short chapters. This is not to criticize the book but to advise true mystery novel aficionados that Bochco is not yet Michael Connelly, Elmore Leonard or George Pelecanos. But the secret to a good mystery is really very simple: a good plot can cover a multitude of sins. Bochco has given us a good plot.

Eddie Jelko, a Hollywood agent, is the story's narrator. His client, Bobby Newman, a screenwriter in a deep writing slump with a marriage in critical condition, is the agent provocateur of the novel. We meet Eddie and Bobby at a Hollywood power lunch meeting where Bobby's consumption of Chardonnay is a sign of trouble. He has a screenplay that he cannot finish and is incapable of taking on a simple three-week script rewrite that would help pay some bills. As Bobby leaves the meeting he sees his wife walking across the street embracing a man and entering the Peninsula Hotel. As Jelko observes sardonically, "If you ever needed an excuse to write, there's one right there."

Back in his Hollywood home, Bobby seeks a little solace in some more Chardonnay and quiet time on his deck overlooking the Hollywood Hills. Gazing through his electronic telescope he spies an event that sets the action for DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD --- a wealthy socialite murdering her lover. For a brief moment Bobby contemplates calling 911. His inability to do so leads the reader down a chain of events with as many twists, turns and curves as California Pacific Highway 101. It is quite an interesting and enjoyable ride.

DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD is first of all a mystery. Therefore, no further divulging of the plot is appropriate. But along the way the reader is introduced to some classic Hollywood characters, including one that Bochco is very comfortable in creating, a police detective with just a touch of larceny in his heart. The reader can almost envision the actors and actresses who would play the various parts in some cinematic treatment of the novel.

This is an easy, enjoyable read for a vacation or three-hour airplane trip. Anyone familiar with Bochco knows that he has a reputation for pushing the envelope in matters of sex and language. In that respect, DEATH BY HOLLYWOOD is no different from Bochco's other efforts. While some might be offended, those who admire Bochco and his work will know what to expect. Bochco has the makings of a good mystery writer. He waited until the age of 59 to give us his first effort. Let us hope there will be another one soon.

--- Reviewed by Stuart Shiffman

Rating:
Summary: This Book Is Both Wickedly Wild and Compelling!
Review: Steven Bocho has written an entertaining novel with his, "Death by Hollywood: A Novel." The characters are colorful, the dialogue quick moving, and the plot anything but boring! I loved it! If you are into page-turners that both excite and delight then this is the book for you. (Highly Recommended!)

Rating:
Summary: Extremely disappointing
Review: The book was somewhat humorous, but I was very disappointed.....I felt the book was crude for crudes sake. Wait to get the book at the Dollar Store!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Humor by Bochco
Review: The first 80 pages of this book read like you are listening to a performance by the world's greatest comedian. Hollywood inside jokes abound and I couldn't put the book down even though it was very late at night. Unfortunately, all the time the author has spent having fun in a novel, now has to be wrapped up in a finished book that requires that he tie up all the loose ends. Therefore the last half of the book reads like a screenplay for a one hour TV drama. Hmmm, this author should be experienced at that.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this book as a light, funny read with plenty of inside jokes to satisfy followers of the industry. It then becomes the solving of a murder mystery with sex thrown in. Some of my favorites subjects. A great book to take to the beach or for a cross-country flight.

Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Review: There is a great opening chapter: glib, clever, witty. From chapter two on, there is one five letter word for this book: TRASH.

Typical LA junk.

Rating:
Summary: Murder, Hollywood Style
Review: There is just something about a book written by a Hollywood insider that grabs your attention. You pick it up at your local bookstore or buy it from Amazon.com (preferably as a discounted paperback), hoping it will live up to the promise of the words on the back cover. That they almost never do, that they are almost always trash, is a sad fact of life.

But sometimes you can be surprised. Sometimes those insiders really know their stuff and sometimes they can really churn out a story. And every now and then they tickle your fancy as you try and keep up with unforgetable characters who romp through a twisting and turning plot.

I found myself laughing aloud while I read along with Bochco's fictional agent Eddie Jelko as he narrated this book about kinky and kooky characters who people the Hollywood scene.

Jelko tells us about his client, screenwriter Bobby Newman, whose career is on a fast track to nowhere. One fateful night he's busy checking out his neighbors with a high powered telescope when he spies a couple in the throws of passion, however when the love makeing is finished, they fight and murder is done.

Even a normal, telescope-looking, peeping tom pervert would go to the cops, but not our quirky hero, because he sees opportunitiy knocking. Here is potential for a screenplay that will put Bobby back on the top of his game. He gets as close to the lady killer as one can possibly get and he gets involved with the detective investigating the case, all in the name of research for his screenplay.

This five star book gives us, actors and agents, screenwriters and their unfaithful wives, cops and killers, and it delivers them all to us Hollywood style.

I don't exactly know how to describe the way Bochco writes, other than to say that if you could cross breed the styles of Carl Hiaasen, Joseph Wambaugh and Elmore Leonord, you'd come close to Bochco's tone of voice. If you want to get a glimpse into a glimmering, glitzy, sometimes tawdry world and laugh while the author takes you along for his ride, I would highly recommend, "Death by Hollywood."

Reviewed by Captain Katie Osborne

Rating:
Summary: a quick review
Review: There was an episode of MARRIED WITH CHILDREN that made a joke about the "Steven Bochco Hall of Failures," and this book sounds like it'll have an alcove in such a museum. It reads like a catharsis for Bochco about the shark-eat-shark nature of the entertainment industry, told second-person from the POV of a screenwriting agent, with far too much Mamet Dammit-level profanity to be considered hardboiled. You'd think he would have picked something up from the NYPD BLUE technical advisors about law enforcement, but Bochco seems to be more focused on venting about the hand that feeds him.

Rating:
Summary: It REALLY is a suprise ending!
Review: This book was a page turner and grabs you from the very beginning. It's plot twists were well thought out. It didn't seem like it often does that the author is just making it up as they go. Often times it feels that the author is forcing a close to a book just so it won't go on forever. Death By Hollywood wrapped up PERFECTLY well and I was completely satisfied.

Rating:
Summary: UNDER-APPRECIATED & WELL WORTH READING
Review: This is an under-appreciated novel by Steven Bochco of NYPD BLUE fame, about a screenwriter named Bobby Newman, in Hollywood who witnesses the wife of a movie mogul clock and kill her washed-up, acting instructor, love slave, while peeping through his telescope. Bobby thinks he's struck gold when he decides to write about the crime and get to know the people involved rather than call the police and report what he's witnessed.

Bobby injects himself into the case and the good graces of the lead detective, Dennis Farentino, thinking he's being discrete, but really assisting Farentino with his investigation with his half-wit observations. Farentino plays Bobby more than Bobby thinks he's playing Farentino.

There is plenty of sex, language, humor, plot twists, and more sex. Though some have claimed this to be a bit skimpy, I say, "Who cares?" It's an engaging story and a real page turner. I hope this is not Bochco's last effort as a novelist, because I really enjoy his turns of phrase in this tight, well-written novel.

Well worth a read.

Rating:
Summary: Crude Drivel
Review: This might be the worst book I ever read, and I read a great deal. I am absolutely astounded by the good reviews it has received. Unless you are in the entertainment business, it is just boring and [inappropriate]. The characters could be grade school children with not even that level of education, and there is nothing likeable about any of them. If I didn't know better, I would think the author had no vocabulary skills whatsoever, given the constant profanity and gutter humor. Perhaps a dictionary or thesaurus might make a good gift for him. Not one thought is fully developed, and the asides are terribly annoying. Mr. Bochco clearly wrote this for the benefit of his friends in the entertainment industry, but I'm beginning to wonder about all of them. Are they all that shallow and tacky? Breezy writing style? If that means flitting from one conversation to another with no segue except some flip and crude reference to sex or body parts, then it's breezy (the book is almost entirely dialogue, or the relaying of a conversation, with descriptions consisting only of cheap sex). I think my cat could write better. Don't waste your money on this truly pathetic attempt at a novel.