Loser’s Town by Daniel Depp
Apr. 19th, 2011 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
The Blurb On The Back:
Playing by the rules can be murder ....
When troubled L.A. detective David Spandau is hired to protect Hollywood superstar Bobby Dye, he isn’t interested. Bobby is one of the most idolised men on the planet, and stalkers are commonplace. Even death threats – like the one Bobby’s been getting – are par for the course.
But peering a little more closely into Bobby’s life, Spandau’s soon finds himself caught up in the dark, seedy underworld that lurks beneath Hollywood’s plastic facade. In a city obsessed by image, no one is who or what they seem – not even Bobby.
And when dead girls and dead ends start to spell danger to those close to him, Spandau quickly learns that in a loser’s town, the only winners are the ones who survive ...
David Spandau’s a former Hollywood stuntman turned private detective/security consultant. Estranged from his wife (although they both still love each other), he’s seen all the craziness that goes with the movie business and knows the hubris, darkness and insecurities that fuel it. But when he’s hired to investigate who’s sending death threats to Bobby Dye – a hot, upcoming young actor – he finds himself sucked into Hollywood’s underworld of drugs, blackmail and murder. As the bodies pile up, Spandau finds himself running out of allies just as the death threats become more personal.
Daniel Depp’s debut novel is a glossy thriller that mixes Hollywood gloss with its dark underbelly. As stories go, this is well-trodden territory and although Depp has an insider’s eye (both as a result of having worked as a script-writer and because his half-brother is Johnny Depp), he doesn’t bring much that’s new.
Spandau thinks that he’s seen it all and he’s used to dealing with Hollywood’s players, movers and shakers. However for a supposedly cynical character he’s surprisingly naive about how things actually work and his desire to help and protect Bobby Dye, who never seems other than a shallow, self-obsessed and ungrateful idiot. Similarly his relationship with his ex-wife has floundered due to his inability to talk or express himself and while some of this is explained by his brutal upbringing, much of it seems to be there to tie in with the stereotype of the loner detective with the unfortunate love life.
There are some enjoyable scenes in the book, particularly those involving Potts, an ex-con who runs errand for Richie (a club owner who works for the L.A. mob) to earn enough money to try and win custody of his daughter and who finds a chance for redemption when he meets a school teacher. I also liked Terry, a short Irishman and martial arts expert who loves Tolkein and has a weakness for beautiful women. However even these characters veer close to cliché at times.
The story is fast paced and there were enough twists and turns to keep my interest, but the strands come close to falling apart towards the end and I found the ending itself to be an unsatisfactory cop-out.
All in all, it’s an okay read that kept me turning the pages, but there’s nothing new here and I’m not sure I’d continue with the series.
The Verdict:
Daniel Depp’s debut thriller is a fast-paced read but doesn’t say anything new about fame or Hollywood and the underbelly he shows has been depicted many times before and to more powerful effect. There were some good scenes and interesting characters but ultimately I found it hard to believe that the insider, Spandau, would be as naive as he turns out to be and I’m not in a hurry to read the next in the series.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.
When troubled L.A. detective David Spandau is hired to protect Hollywood superstar Bobby Dye, he isn’t interested. Bobby is one of the most idolised men on the planet, and stalkers are commonplace. Even death threats – like the one Bobby’s been getting – are par for the course.
But peering a little more closely into Bobby’s life, Spandau’s soon finds himself caught up in the dark, seedy underworld that lurks beneath Hollywood’s plastic facade. In a city obsessed by image, no one is who or what they seem – not even Bobby.
And when dead girls and dead ends start to spell danger to those close to him, Spandau quickly learns that in a loser’s town, the only winners are the ones who survive ...
David Spandau’s a former Hollywood stuntman turned private detective/security consultant. Estranged from his wife (although they both still love each other), he’s seen all the craziness that goes with the movie business and knows the hubris, darkness and insecurities that fuel it. But when he’s hired to investigate who’s sending death threats to Bobby Dye – a hot, upcoming young actor – he finds himself sucked into Hollywood’s underworld of drugs, blackmail and murder. As the bodies pile up, Spandau finds himself running out of allies just as the death threats become more personal.
Daniel Depp’s debut novel is a glossy thriller that mixes Hollywood gloss with its dark underbelly. As stories go, this is well-trodden territory and although Depp has an insider’s eye (both as a result of having worked as a script-writer and because his half-brother is Johnny Depp), he doesn’t bring much that’s new.
Spandau thinks that he’s seen it all and he’s used to dealing with Hollywood’s players, movers and shakers. However for a supposedly cynical character he’s surprisingly naive about how things actually work and his desire to help and protect Bobby Dye, who never seems other than a shallow, self-obsessed and ungrateful idiot. Similarly his relationship with his ex-wife has floundered due to his inability to talk or express himself and while some of this is explained by his brutal upbringing, much of it seems to be there to tie in with the stereotype of the loner detective with the unfortunate love life.
There are some enjoyable scenes in the book, particularly those involving Potts, an ex-con who runs errand for Richie (a club owner who works for the L.A. mob) to earn enough money to try and win custody of his daughter and who finds a chance for redemption when he meets a school teacher. I also liked Terry, a short Irishman and martial arts expert who loves Tolkein and has a weakness for beautiful women. However even these characters veer close to cliché at times.
The story is fast paced and there were enough twists and turns to keep my interest, but the strands come close to falling apart towards the end and I found the ending itself to be an unsatisfactory cop-out.
All in all, it’s an okay read that kept me turning the pages, but there’s nothing new here and I’m not sure I’d continue with the series.
The Verdict:
Daniel Depp’s debut thriller is a fast-paced read but doesn’t say anything new about fame or Hollywood and the underbelly he shows has been depicted many times before and to more powerful effect. There were some good scenes and interesting characters but ultimately I found it hard to believe that the insider, Spandau, would be as naive as he turns out to be and I’m not in a hurry to read the next in the series.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster for the free copy of this book.