Terrill Lee Lankford Blonde Lightning

Blonde Lightning

Terrill Lee Lankford

Ballantine, Aug 2005, $24.95, 304 pp.

ISBN: 0345467795

Hollywood studio executive Mark Hayes is angry with his neighbor screenwriter Clyde McCoy for ignoring his grief at the death of his last conquest. However, Clyde apologizes insisting he does not do death well even as his girlfriend black belt Emily Woolrich blames Mark for Clyde drinking.

Clyde tells Mark he has a great script that has backing. Mark is interested because he read Blonde Lightning and thought this had good possibilities. As they begin production on the film, accidents occur that Mark thinks is deliberate; Emily believes it is her former "agent" Mace Thornburg a nasty person feeling she jobbed him out of a fee. Not willing to sit idly by as his movie is being ruined; Mark investigates the incidents that have escalated into murder and sent Clyde into hiding.

Terrill Lee Lankford cleverly uses the opening reels to set the stage for the key players in such a manner that the audience knows how they tick and understands the relationships between them; this comes in handy later in the tale. Once the movie starts shooting, the action takes over and goes non stop as Mark tries to save his film from ruin. Fans of Hollywood amateur sleuth tales will want to read the breezy BLONDE LIGHTNING.

Harriet Klausner