Beverly Hills Dead

November 5, 2007
In this tepid sequel to 2004's The Prince of Beverly Hills
, bestseller Woods revisits the late 1940s but fails to realistically evoke the era of the HUAC hearings, Hollywood blacklists and the waning days of big studios and the star system. Demoted L.A. detective Rick Barron recently quit the force to head security for Centurion Studios and has now morphed into the studio's head of production. Using this new power at the studio, Rick is in charge of selecting leading actors and scouting settings for a gritty western written by famous playwright Sidney Brooks. Centurion is a worthy stand-in for the typical studio of the era, but the Hollywood blacklist story and the untimely disappearance of one of the stars is familiar territory, and Woods doesn't break any new ground. Longtime fans of Woods's Stone Barrington series are sure to enjoy certain aspects of the story, but newcomers are likely to be disappointed.

November 1, 2007
Both a sequel to The Prince of Beverly Hills (2004) and a prequel (of sorts) to L.A. Dead (2000) and L.A. Times (1993), this novel, set in Hollywood in the late 1940s, feels like a movie made in that era, with snappy dialogue, lively characters, and a story that moves along at a brisk clip. Rick Barron, the former Beverly Hills police officer introduced in Prince of Beverly Hills, is now head of production of Centurion Pictures. He has just commissioned a script from his good friend, playwright Sid Brook, when Brook is subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Theres trouble for Rick, too: he is sent, anonymously, a copy of a Communist Party registration card that seems to prove that his wife is a party member. Although this highly entertaining tale does feature a couple of important mystery elements, the thematic focus is less on crime than on Hollywoods struggle to maintain artistic independence during the Communist witch hunts. Woods, author of the Stone Barrington mystery series, injects into the story some important points about the uneasy relationship between art and politics, not to mention the havoc wreaked upon personal lives by the HUAC investigations. But dont be frightened off by too much politics: this is a slick, fast-paced story about moviemaking, and its a lot of fun. Recommend it particularly to fans of Greg Matthews 1940s-era Hollywood mysteries and Stuart Kaminskys Toby Peters series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)