Goodbye LA

Ben Crandel agrees to help his friend, George, a police captain, search for George's girlfriend, a reporter for the L.A. Times, who has mysteriously disappeared

Semi-jaded screenwriter Ben Crandel (Only in L.A., Tough Luck L.A.) is trying to cope with his 15-year-old adopted son's attempts to become an unintelligibly loud punk singer. Ben also tries to buck up his newly divorced best friend, L.A.P.D. detective George Steifer. When Steifer's new girlfriend disappearsshe's an L.A. Times reporter doing a story on the punk scenethe workaholic detective goes a little crazy. Then one of his snitches is murdered in a punk club men's room and Steifer goes on a rampage, dragging Crandel along. What they finda connection between a right-wing TV preacher and a real neo-Nazi punk-rock group almost gets them both killed. Sinclair's dialogue in two diverse worlds sparkles occasionally (the preacher's tirade is eerily, funnily accurate), and he provides a lot of color and motion if not much sense of action before an appropriately violent, roman noir ending.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

$15.95. f Protagonist Ben Crandel, a blase screenwriter in the midst of Hollywood glamour, helps policeman friend George Steifer find a missing woman reporter. While investigating the punk rock drug scene along the wrong part of Santa Monica Boulevard, they discover connections to neo-Nazi violence. A great sense of place for the most part, with colorful description and dialogue, but vague in direction and a bit short on plot. For most collections. REK
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.