Book review: My Gun Has Bullets by Lee Goldberg - a fun to read, rude farce with more than just a touch of absurdity

I reviewed another of Lee Goldberg’s books, Watch Me Die, a while ago.  I didn’t realise that as well as writing novels, Goldberg had also been involved in TV scriptwriting, with shows such as Monk, Diagnosis Murder and Hunter under his belt.  His Amazon profile is so tongue in check, I’m not sure whether he actually has two Edgar Award nominations from the Mystery Writers of America or not.

Anyway, I so enjoyed Watch Me Die, that I thought I’d try another of his books.  I didn’t want to read TV spinoffs of Monk and Diagnosis Murder, so I looked at his other novels and found My Gun Has Bullets.  Intrigued by the title, I got the book….This is what I found.

It’s a book best described as a rude and raucous romp through Hollywood.  The protagonist is former Beverly Hills Police Officer Charlie Willis.  When he was still a proper police officer, Willis pulled over a speeding Rolls Royce driven by Esther Radcliffe, geriatric star of the TV series Miss Agatha.  Radcliffe’s reaction to this slight was to shoot Willis and drive off!  The Pinnacle studio are terrified of the consequences of Miss Agatha being cancelled and so buy Willis off by offering him a lucrative TV contract as detective Derek Thorne in his own show My Gun Has Bullets.

Life in Hollywood is far from straightforward though.  Organised crime boss Daddy Crofoot has made a big investment in entertainment and concerned about poor ratings, send a hitman Delbert Skaggs to take over programming and sort out the ratings problem.  Skaggs’ approach is simple – kill the stars of rival TV shows to boost ratings.  Charlie is one of the first victims of the plot, shooting an extra dead because the prop gun turned out to be a real gun with real bullets.  As he becomes the focus of Hollywood media frenzy, Charlie decides he’s going to be like his TV character Thorne and track down whoever is responsible for an escalating tide of TV murders.  He knows he can do this because his gun has bullets!

This book is firmly tongue in cheek, with a strong element of farce, which is reminiscent of Tom Sharpe’s early writing.  It’s rude and crude with occasional but gratuitous sex and violence, so if you’re easily offended or want your books to be completely realistic, it’s not for you.  If like the like the idea of comic characters and laugh out loud crime with more than just a touch of absurdity, this is definitely for you.

Romancrimeblogger