Behind the scenes on a TV show in LA, chaos, jealousies and love affairs combine to produce a poisonous atmosphere - but someone takes it too far and a producer is murdered. Susan is a new assistant and has been working hard, keeping her head down against paranoia and spite from control freak Rebecca. Susan dreams of being a script writer for the show about two lawyers. But Rebecca's death at night in the office launches her into a whole new level of tension as everyone suspects everyone else and the contents of all the desks may be evidence, such as threatening letters, unsent memos about promotion and unmailed cheques.
KILLER RATINGS reads like 'The Devil Wears Prada' for TV shows at first, and it's actually a pity when Rebecca gets killed as she was so entertaining. Her cocaine habits, vodka addiction and wrecking of other people's careers made for volatility not, we'd hope, found in most bosses, while the other office staff seem like saints by comparison. In the void of her death however other dislikes, affairs and destructive behaviours surface, and Susan gets better acquainted with the men and women of the show than is really safe, given one may be a murderer - or as they keep saying, it may have been a burglary gone wrong. Producers, major actors, bit part actors, scriptwriters and carpenters all combine to create a pressured, enclosed atmosphere, the more so when the show's ratings take off in the wake of the murder.
Fans of mystery stories and of TV and film production both will find much to enjoy in KILLER RATINGS. Susan is more reacting to her situation than a strong personality, rushing from one suspicion and revelation to the next, and I would have liked to see her in a more personal light. I also notice a current trend of introducing one or two British characters with upper-class accents - perhaps to try to help sales of US books in the UK? Sorry, no, that doesn't work for me. The characters always come across as one-sided, and if I want to read about British characters I'll read a novel set in Britain. For a story set in the LA atmosphere, with copious details about the flustered office and the tedious set or location work, I could hardly do better.
Los Angeles is no stranger to glamour, celebrity . . . and
murder. When Susan Kaplan moves to L.A. to become a TV
writer, she's thrilled to be hired as a writers' assistant
on the well-regarded but low-rated TV series Babbitt &
Brooks. The last thing she expects, however, is that she'd
find herself working for the beautiful yet seriously
neurotic Rebecca Saunders, the show's less-than-competent
associate producer who may or may not have gotten the job by
sleeping with Babbitt & Brooks' demanding creator and
executive producer, Ray Goldfarb.
And Susan definitely doesn't expect to find murdered
Rebecca's body in her office at the studio early one
morning. When the police learn that Rebecca torpedoed
Susan's writing career shortly before her death, Susan
becomes their number one suspect. Determined to prove her
innocence and find the murderer, Susan discovers that all
her colleagues have secrets they would kill to protect. From
producers to writers tostars, it seems that the hopes and
dreams of nearly everyone associated with the show were
being threatened by Rebecca.
Despite the danger to her own life, Susan remains determined
to find Rebecca's killer and in the process unmasks the
dirty little secrets behind the making of a primetime
television series. She learns that real life behind the
camera is far more dramatic than the fictional one in front
of it.
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