Hot Shot

When Kieran O'Connor gets the chance to ghostwrite a Hollywood hooker's tell-all biography, he jumps at the opportunity. It's Kieran's first lucky break in a while: His relationship is on the skids, his apartment was just destroyed in an earthquake, and he's been suspended from his newspaper job covering the entertainment industry after referring to a certain studio chief as "vertically challenged."

Felina Lopez has known some of the biggest names in L.A., including a popular sitcom dad who just overdosed on a designer drug called Hot Shot, and she's got a lot to say. But soon Felina herself is found dead under mysterious circumstances. A corps of sleazy reporters and TV news jackals are dogging Kieran's every move. And he's getting anonymous phone calls warning him to drop the project.

Kieran sets up an investigation that brings him to some of the oddest characters in post-O.J. L.A., including a convicted "drug dealer to the stars," a talent agent who represents only the notorious , a prostitute who doubles her money by selling her clients' stories to the supermarket tabloids, and a sinister photographer nicknamed "the Nazi Paparazzi."

With help from a Yale-educated tabloid reporter, Kieran slowly discovers the truth about Felina Lopez and the secrets that someone in Hollywood is trying to protect. The question is: Will he get his book finished by the deadline without ending up dead himself?