Charlie Willis Series by Lee Goldberg
Charlie Willis #1
My Gun Has Bullets
Lee Goldberg
From Publishers WeeklyThis brash satire of television fare is as empty as the idiocy it aims to prick. TV screenwriter/producer Goldberg floods the pages with dimwitted entertainment idols, sex and special-effects violence. Esther Radcliffe (read Angela L.), best known as Miss Agatha, the cookie-baking lady who solves mysteries and owns Sunday night across America, is actually a sex-driven harpy who shoots LAPD Officer Charlie Willis (read Bruce) in the stomach when he stops her for speeding. To save Sunday nights, her network bribes Charlie with a show of his own, transforming him into steely detective Derek Thorne on My Gun Has Bullets. Then the mob takes over the production company, and the new head of production starts rubbing out the competition to ensure his top billing in the ratings. Esther meanwhile is being both serviced by the equinely endowed Flint Westwood, who secretly films their indiscretions. When someone puts live ammo in Derek Thorne's gun, Charlie kills a fellow player. Did Esther or the mob supply the bullets? Will Esther murder her top-heavy new co-star, Sabrina Bishop (read Pamela A. of Baywatch)? Lots of T&A and no wit. Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. From BooklistBeverly Hills cop Charlie Willis wakes up in the hospital after he is gutshot by the maniac driver of a Rolls Royce he stopped for speeding. The two men in Armani suits awaiting his return to consciousness offer Charlie his own TV series if he fails to identify his assailant, the network's ratings queen, Aunt Agatha. Eight months later he's the star of My Gun Has Bullets. But Charlie soon learns that ratings wars are far more lethal than police work. Charlie and his newfound love, starlet Sabrina Bishop, are menaced by a man-eating canine star, two homicidal but profoundly dumb stuntmen, the psychotic Aunt Agatha, a blackmailing, sex-obsessed series star, a Mob hit man-cum-producer, and a wonderfully ludicrous assortment of TV executives. Writer-producer Goldberg's very funny novel is a pinch of Carl Hiaasen, a dash of Donald Westlake, and a heaping portion of avarice and inanity Hollywood style. It's boffo! Thomas Gaughan
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