6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Its Hard to get back to work, January 29, 2003
Stephen Cannell's latest Shane Scully novel returns the reader to Los Angeles one year after Shane and his beautiful wife/partner/boss Alexa barely survived The Viking Funeral (St. Martin's, January 2002 and December 2002 softcover). Shane is completing medical leave recuperation from injuries received in that story. He and Alexa, happily married, and Shane's son "Chooch" seemingly have adjusted well to all of their traumas, and Shane is wondering what kind of new duty he will draw, and if he will be working under his wife, who has progressed rapidly up the LAPD promotion ladder. Things cannot stay serene for long, however.
Shane and Alexa attend an engagement party for Alexa's best friend, who has been star-crossed for lovers. At the party, Shane meets Nicky Marcella, one of his former clients/snitch, a con man who has become a movie producer. He asks Shane to help him locate an old friend whom he wants to cast in his new movie, but he can't locate her. Also, Shane overhears the groom to be making an arch comment about never needing a divorce - his previous wives died after he tired of the! Shane is suspicious and over Alexa's objections starts to investigate. He also finds the missing actress, who is now a doped-up prostitute. He reports back to Nicky, and then forgets about it - until he is called out to a crime scene to identify her tortured body and explain why she had his business card. Now Shane is angry and pushes on to discover an East Cost mafia family trying to wedge into the Hollywood unions, a merging of street gangs to take over narcotics trafficking in LA, and ends up fronting a sting that before he knows it is really producing a megamillion dollar movie. And then the gang involvement reaches in and entangles his son.
It all works out in the end, and Shane doesn't really get to be a movie magnet. It is a suspense-filled story with lots of action. Cannell can be counted on for a good story, whether in one of his novels or one of his movies. This one is true to form.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Save your cash!, January 8, 2003
By A Customer
Stephen Cannell has written his third book in his Shane Scully series. This tale involves the whole Scully family that has been created over the three books, and a deputy chief that allows his officers to do anything they wish. Gone is the hard-boiled edge Cannell has put into his previous books. Cannell has run out of ideas for this series and has failed in his attempt to keep it fun. "Tin Collectors" was by far the best work of this series. This tale drags on for 300 some pages, and is not worth the time or the money. The 3 stars is a gift. I hope he can do better in the next one.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shane Scully cracks the crust of Hollywood, January 27, 2005
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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