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LOSER'S TOWN
by Daniel Depp
Simon & Schuster, March 2009
290 pages
$25.00
ISBN: 1439101434


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

David Spandau is a private investigator who was at one time a stuntman. Although he never reached the big time, his experience in the movie business comes in handy as he works with Hollywood types. His newest client is a hot young actor named Bobby Dee, who is being blackmailed. Spandau is a bit world weary and not particularly impressed by his employer. Perhaps that is why Bobby trusts him more than the other sycophants who surround him.

The blackmailer is a gangster named Richie Stella, and he has pictures of a dead girl in Bobby Dye's bathroom that would likely remove him from the star scene forever. Stella isn't demanding a large sum of money; instead, he is asking that Bobby star in a movie that he is making, thinking that Dye's presence will guarantee a successful box office. Bobby realizes right away that Stella's movie is a real stinker, one that would surely send his career down the toilet.

LOSER'S TOWN is inhabited by the kinds of characters that you'd expect to see hanging around the fringes of a movie set—washed-up actors, desperate talent agents, hustlers and fame wannabes. I especially liked David Spandau, whose cynicism is laced with humor. At the same time, he is dealing with the dissolution of his marriage, despite the fact that the two of them really seem to belong together. The pacing is good and the dialogue excellent; the only negative for me was the somewhat unsatisfactory resolution.

Depp excels at depicting a world that appears to be all glitter on the outside but is really all grime on the inside. I was surprised to find that LOSER'S TOWN is a debut novel—the writing was quite assured and the book well crafted.

Reviewed by Maddy Van Hertbruggen, April 2009

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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