Book picks similar to
The Hollywood Trilogy: A Couple of Comedians, The True Story of Jody McKeegan, and Turnaround by Don Carpenter
fiction
hollywood
american-fiction
los-angeles
Nomad
James Swallow - 2016
But when a brutal attack on his team leaves Marc as the only survivor - and with the shocking knowledge that there are traitors inside MI6 - he's forced into the front line.However the evidence seems to point towards Marc as the perpetrator of the attack. Accused of betraying his country, he must race against time to clear his name. With nowhere to turn to for help and no one left to trust, Marc is forced to rely on the elusive Rubicon group and their operative Lucy Keyes. Ex US Army, Lucy also knows what it's like to be an outsider, and she's got the skills that Marc is sorely lacking.A terrorist attack is coming, one bigger and more deadly than has ever been seen before. With the eyes of the security establishment elsewhere, only Lucy and Marc can stop the attack before it's too late.
On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family
Lisa See - 1995
There, her grand-mother and great-aunt told her intriguing, colorful stories about their family's past - stories of missionaries, concubines, tong wars, glamorous nightclubs, and the determined struggle to triumph over racist laws and discrimination. They spoke of how Lisa's great-great-grandfather emigrated from his Chinese village to the United States; how his son followed him, married a Caucasian woman, and despite great odds, went on to become one of the most prominent Chinese on "Gold Mountain" (the Chinese name for the United States). As an adult, See spent five years collecting the details of her family's remarkable history. She interviewed nearly one hundred relatives - both Chinese and Caucasian, rich and poor - and pored over documents at the National Archives, the immigration office, and in countless attics, basements, and closets for the intimate nuances of her ancestors' lives.
The Vintage Teacup Club
Vanessa Greene - 2012
They decide to share it - and form a friendship that changes their lives.Jenny can't wait to marry Dan. Then, after years of silence, she hears from the woman who could shatter her dreams.Maggie has put her broken heart behind her and is gearing up for the biggest event of her career - until she's forced to confront the past once more.Alison seems to have it all: married to her childhood sweetheart, with two gorgeous daughters. But as tensions mount, she is pushed to breaking point.Dealing with friendship and families, relationships and careers, highs and lows, The Vintage Teacup Club is heart-warming storytelling at its very best.
Alibi
Joseph Kanon - 2005
Winner of the Hammett PrizeIt is 1946, and Adam Miller has come to Venice to visit his widowed mother and try to forget the horrors he has witnessed as a U.S. Army war crimes investigator in Germany. But when he falls in love with Claudia, a Jewish woman scarred by her devastating experiences during World War II, he is forced to confront another Venice, a city still at war with itself, haunted by atrocities it would rather forget. Everyone, including his mother's suave new Venetian suitor, has been compromised by the occupation, and Adam finds himself at the center of a web of deception, intrigue, and unexpected moral dilemmas.When is murder acceptable? What are the limits of guilt? How much is someone willing to pay for a perfect alibi?
The Onion Field
Joseph Wambaugh - 1973
This is the frighteningly true story of two young cops and two young robbers whose separate destinies fatally cross one March night in a bizarre execution in a deserted Los Angeles field.
Sphinx
Robin Cook - 1979
Innocently she cast her eyes in forbidden places and discovered the clue to a treasure beyond imagination. It was then that terror overtook her, as the most fearful curse of the ancient world and the most savage menace of the modern one threatened to destroy her. One dangerously attractive man offered Erica help...he offered her protection...he offered her love. And in this strange, exotic land of seductive evils, where no one could be trusted, desire became for Erica the deadliest snare of all...
After Dark
Phillip Margolin - 1995
Reynold's client - and the chief suspect - is none other than the icy but celebrated prosecutor Abigail Griffen, the Justice's estranged wife. Tracy's research plunges her into a web of betrayal and revenge, of secret deals and hidden passions. At the heart of the case lies a twisted truth - and when the verdict comes in, she will discover that nothing is as it seems...after dark.
The Sigma Protocol
Robert Ludlum - 2001
In a matter of minutes, six innocent bystanders -- and Cavanaugh -- are dead. But when his body vanishes, and his weapon mysteriously appears in Hartman's luggage, Hartman is plunged into an unfathomable nightmare, and suddenly finds himself on the run. Meanwhile in Washington, D.C., Anna Navarro, field agent for the Department of justice, has been asked to investigate the sudden -- seemingly unrelated -- deaths of eleven men throughout the world. The only thing that connects them is a secret file, over a half-century old, linked to the CIA, and marked with the same puzzling codename: Sigma.But as Anna follows the connecting thread, she finds herself in the shadows of a relentless killer who is one step ahead of her, victim by victim. Together she and Hartman must uncover the diabolical secrets long held behind the codename, Sigma. It will threaten everything they think they know about themselves and confirm their very worst fears...
Lonesome Traveler
Jack Kerouac - 1960
Standing on the engine of a train as it rushes past fields of prickly cactus; witnessing his first bullfight in Mexico while high on opium; catching up with the beat night life in New York; burying himself in the snow-capped mountains of north-west America; meditating on a sunlit roof in Tangiers; or falling in love with Montmartre and the huge white basilica of Sacré-Coeur – Kerouac reveals the endless diversity of human life and his own high-spirited philosophy of self-fulfilment.
The Glass Key
Dashiell Hammett - 1931
Did he want her badly enough to commit murder? And if Madvig was innocent, which of his dozens of enemies was doing an awfully good job of framing him? Dashiell Hammett's tour de force of detective fiction combines an airtight plot, authentically venal characters, and writing of telegraphic crispness.
This Sweet Sickness
Patricia Highsmith - 1960
Ripley.David Kelsey, a young scientist, has an unyielding conviction that life will turn out all right for him; he just has to fix the Situation: he is in love with a married woman. Obsessed with Annabelle and the life he has imagined for them—including the fully furnished cabin he maintains for her—David prepares to win her over, whatever it takes.In this riveting tale of a deluded loner, Highsmith reveals her uncanny ability to draw out the secret obsessions that overwhelm the human heart.
The Swordsman of Tanosa: A Short Tale of the Middle Sea
Duncan M. Hamilton - 2014
5,000 words (16 pages).For Bafion, there is no farther to fall. Once a banneret, officer, and gentleman, he is none of those things now. He is a swordsman who has slipped through the cracks of society and is eking out an existence as a thug for hire.Bafion is presented with the opportunity to reclaim some of what was lost to him, but to do so will mean facing part of his past that he would rather forget.The Swordsman of Tanosa is a swashbuckling fantasy short story set in the same world as the Society of the Sword trilogy.
Woman Enters Left
Jessica Brockmole - 2017
Among Florrie’s possessions are several unproduced screenplays, personal journals, and—inexplicably—old photographs of Louise’s mother, Ethel. On an impulse, Louise leaves a film shoot in Las Vegas and sets off for her father’s house on the East Coast, hoping for answers about the curious inheritance and, perhaps, about her own troubled marriage.Nearly thirty years earlier, Florrie takes off on an adventure of her own, driving her Model T westward from New Jersey in pursuit of broader horizons. She has the promise of a Hollywood job and, in the passenger seat, Ethel, her best friend since childhood. Florrie will do anything for Ethel, who is desperate to reach Nevada in time to reconcile with her husband and reunite with her daughter. Ethel fears the loss of her marriage; Florrie, with long-held secrets confided only in her journal, fears its survival.In parallel tales, the three women—Louise, Florrie, Ethel—discover that not all journeys follow a map. As they rediscover their carefree selves on the road, they learn that sometimes the paths we follow are shaped more by our traveling companions than by our destinations.
Myra Breckinridge
Gore Vidal - 1968
Written as a diary, Myra Breckinridge, someone determined not to be possessed by any man, recounts her day as she lives it out in the Hollywood of the '60s. Feminism, transsexuality, and a host of cinematic jokes abound.