When you attend as many fiction writers’ conferences as I do, you run up against an interesting but sometimes painful phenomenon.
After attending a panel where a writer seems so bright and so funny, you rush right out and pick up a copy of one of their books.
Then, you go home and find out that the author can talk a good game but isn’t able to get it down on paper.
I have a pretty large pile of half-read books that I’ve bought — or received in goody bags — at Boucheron or the New England Crime Bake or ThrillerFest.
I met the crime writer Alison Gaylin at the Bouchercon in Baltimore last fall and was impressed by her humor and intelligence, so I held on to a copy of “Trashed” (Onyx) that I received in a complimentary book bag.
Well, I didn’t have a chance to read the thriller until last week and was very pleased to find out that Gaylin’s 2008 book is a winner.
The novel takes us behind the scenes at a show biz tabloid in Los Angeles where the new writer on staff, Simone Glass, is distressed to find out that most of what she learned at the Columbia University School of Journalism will be of no use to her at The Asteroid, a gossip rag in such dire financial straits that it always seems to be one issue away from folding.
Simone has a sister who is a success in cable TV news, and family back home who don’t know her first job didn’t pan out.
Gaylin worked as an arts and entertainment journalist for a decade and puts her insider’s knowledge to good use in “Trashed.” The upstate New York resident also clearly did extensive research in Los Angeles to make sure her portrait of the movie colony was up to date.
We follow Simone through her initial embarrassment to be digging into the private lives of celebrities — often by posing as a waitress or other faceless background player at an industry party. Gaylin crosscuts between Simone’s adventures and a maniac who is killing has-beens or minor contemporary players. As the story progresses, the killer moves closer to Simone and the A-list celebrities the Asteroid is tracking.
Although “Trashed” is set in the quite specific world of celebrity tabloids, Gaylin uses the story to show the reader how tough it is for any kind of reporter to get close to a subject and then “betray” him or her with a too-revealing story.
The book is full of black comedy but Gaylin treats the characters and the Hollywood scene with respect for their very strange and exposed lives. The shifts between the wry and determined Simone and the sordid underbelly of show business are handled with great skill — “Trashed” is a very hard-boiled crime novel that never betrays a reader’s trust or intelligence.
