Rating: 
Summary: A fast paced detective series.
Review: This book was my first reading of a Shane Scully novel. It was good enough to entice me to buy the other two novels. Since I read the last book first, it is difficult to compare to the previous novels.This book was very fast paced. It would have helped if I read the other novels first. However, the plot was enjoyable. Cannell has an excellent writing style. Of the three Scully novels, I feel Viking Funeral was the best. I am looking forward to the next installment.
Rating: 
Summary: Shane Scully cracks the crust of Hollywood
Review: Yes, it's true. Shane and Alexa are back in action, now married and living in Shane's small house in Venice CA with Shane's son Chooch. Alexa's long time friend Nora Bishop is getting married, and after a series of bad boyfriends she has finally landed Farrell Champion, big name movie producer.
When Alexa and Shane attend a party splattered with big name stars at Farrell's house, Shane runs into a no-name street grifter from the streets named Nicky Marcella. Nicky claims to be running a legitimate movie production company named Cine-Roma, and also claims to be partnered with Champion. He asks Shane for a favor in return for all the informing he had done in the past for LAPD, namely, find a girl named Carol White that Nicky wanted to star in his next movie.
Alexa is called away from the party for a big-time gang shooting, and as Shane is leaving separately, he overhears Farrell mentioning something about poisoning his two previous wives. Shane proceeds to find Carol, a used up junkie selling her body for fixes, and also discovers a strange plot to overtake the IATSE union by a mobster named Dennis Valentine from back east. When Carol is found brutally murdered, her death touches Shane deep inside, bring him face to face with the demons that keep him on the police force.
Shane realizes that somehow, Nicky, Dennis, Farrell, and the gang shootings are related, and vows to avenge Carol's useless death by discovering the truth behind the bizarre mob connections in the glamorous world of show business.
While Cannell's `The Viking Funeral' took a turn into the darker side of existence, `Hollywood Tough' makes up for it by skirting along an almost comedic edge of the seedier side of the movie industry. There's a script that makes no sense to be purchased from a Scientology-type religious fanatic, the movie star Michael Fallon who has so many phobias he has to track them on paper, a producer named Paul Lubick who's ego is only outsized by the massive redwood trees he imports for a ceiling shot, and Nicky Marcella's buzz-word wanna-be actions.
This time Shane may have bitten off more than he can chew, and as he slides into his own undercover world of glamour and glitz, he realizes the seductress's pull of the lifestyle and how close he finds himself submitting to its temptations. Also introduced in `Hollywood Tough' is Chooch's girlfriend Delfina, who to me turned out to be disappointingly shallow in comparison to the other brightly painted characters from the story.
Cannell again uses words to graphically sketch a rolling video in my head, the plot folding and twisting around one of my favorite book-cops of all. A fast and energetic read, don't miss out on the Shane Scully books, The Tin Collectors, The Viking Funeral, and now Hollywood Tough. Enjoy!
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