EVERYBODY SMOKES IN HELL [ Signed 1st ]; Signed 1st

John Ridley -- author of Stray Dogs and Love Is a Racket -- is back with a scathingly funny, outrageous new novel that chronicles the mayhem unleashed by the misadventures of one hapless young man trying to make it in Hollywood.

Paris Scott can't make anything work out. A failed Hollywood screenwriter, he works nights at a convenience store, and drives a '74 Gremlin. And he was just dumped by his best girl. But when the last master tape of a freshly-suicided rock star and a small fortune's worth of stolen drugs fall into his lap, he seems to have stumbled on the key to his dreams.

It might as well be a neutron bomb.

Although the people who want the dope get themselves dangerously confused with the people who want the tape, it's clear to everyone that Paris is the target. And how does a guy who's wanted dead stay alive? "Get out of town, get some money, then get more out of town." Paris puts his Gremlin in gear and the resulting chase and chain- reaction madness stretches from Los Angeles to Las Vegas leaving a trail of blood, bodies, and broken hearts in its wake.

Dope dealers, Hollywood agents, two-bit criminals, three-bit criminals, waitresses, rock stars, strippers, beautiful women, not-so-beautiful women, honest working Joes and psychopaths -- no one comes out clean in this raucous romp-and-stomp. It's John Ridley at his most devilishly sly, laying out proof that, without a doubt, everybody smokes in hell.

John Ridley began his career as a stand-up comedian in New York before becoming a writer for television, including such hits as Martin and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and for film, working with directors Francis Ford Coppola and Oliver Stone. Ridley's directorial debut, Cold Around the Heart, won a Best Director award at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York. His previous novel, Love Is a Racket, was named one of the Ten Best Books of 1998 by the Los Angeles Times. He lives on the West Coast somewhere.