Terrill Lee Lankford - Earthquake Weather (2004)
Set in the tension-filled days following the deadly L.A. temblor of 1994, Terrill Lee Lankford's Earthquake Weather is a biting satire of Hollywood cast in the form of a murder mystery.
As a longtime filmmaker, Lankford knows the business from the inside out, and he uses that knowledge to flay Tinseltown's overinflated egos and pretensions with razor-sharp wit.
His main character, Mark Hayes, is a development executive stuck in a dead-end job working for a tyrannical movie producer. When the producer is found dead floating his pool, the list of suspects seems to include just about everyone in Hollywood, including Hayes.
Hayes sets out to find the killer himself, along the way encountering a rogue's gallery of showbiz malcontents that will have readers shaking their heads in disbelief, all the while laughing out loud.
Earthquake Weather is the best Hollywood novel since Michael Tolkin's The Player -- and a fine crime story besides.
Posted by David J. Montgomery in Book Reviews | Permalink
