COPP ON FIRE

Joe Copps Hollywood investigation expands when he is named an accomplice to murder, and more bodies turn up as he probes the corporate offices and backlots of the Hollywood studios

Pendleton's Los Angeles private eye, Joe Copp ( Copp for Hire ) narrates a fast-moving story with plenty of suspense. Confined to a wheelchair, Albert Moore pays the detective handsomely for a simple jobphotographing people entering a shop called Nu-Cal Designsbut the assignment takes on frighteningly lurid complications. A bomb destroys the shop, Moore and the chauffeur of his limousine; glossy actress Melissa Moore Franklin survives the blast, however, and runs to ask Copp for protection from invisible killers. Himself a suspect in the crime, the detective is in danger from the police and the cunning perpetrators who keep murdering anyone in their way. Learning that the man who called himself Moore has been identified as movie mogul Bernard Wiseman, Copp interviews his ex-wife Justine and gets a line on the relationship between the real Moore and Charles Franklin, former and present spouses of Melissa. The twists double and redouble, tying the private investigator into stringent knots and casting him, at length, into the hands of merciless conspirators. The author sustains the heat that keeps Copp "on fire" throughout the rousing adventure of a likable hero whose daring is matched by a lusty sense of humor.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A rather raw, blustery, "macho" narrative marks this Hollywood adventure as Pendleton's own. Joe Copp, ex-policeman turned P.I., becomes the patsy in a case involving the apparent bombing death of United Talents president Bernie Wiseman. Multiple murders and several close calls occur before Copp differentiates between back-East Mafia talent and local bad guys. Pendleton emphasizes fast-moving, gritty action to the exclusion of characterization, but still beats authors Keith and De Larrabeiti to the punch.REK
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.