HOLLYWOOD HUSTLE, entertaining debut novel/thriller from veteran Actor Jon Lindstrom

HOLLYWOOD HUSTLE
JON LINDSTROM
Crooked Lane Books (non-affiliate Amazon link)
$14.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: From 4-time Emmy-nominated actor Jon Lindstrom of General Hospital, Bosch, and True Detective fame, comes a gripping debut thriller.

Set in the dark underbelly of the LA film industry, Hollywood Hustle is the perfect read for fans of Alex Finlay and Jeffrey Deaver.

Winston Greene, a has-been film star, wakes one morning to find his six-year-old granddaughter at his bedside—traumatized, unattended, and gripping onto a thumb drive. She comes bearing video proof that her mother, Win’s troubled adult daughter, has been kidnapped by a murderous gang demanding all his “movie money” for her safe return. But what they don’t know is…his movie money is long gone.

Unable to go to the police for fear the kidnappers will make good on their promise to kill his daughter, Winston turns to two close friends—a legendary Hollywood stuntman and a disgraced former LAPD detective.

There’s no easy way out for Winston or his daughter—the gang is violent and willing to do anything to get the money they’re after, and Winston begins to realize that to get his daughter back, he’ll have to beat the kidnappers at their own game.

This propulsive and tense thriller will transport readers to the seedier side of LA, depicted in bold prose by a Hollywood insider.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE LIBRARYTHING EARLY REVIEWERS PROGRAM. THANK YOU.

My Review: Thrillers starring grandfathers are uncommon. Grandfathers aren't. The fact we have a man who failed on multiple axes in his life rising to the challenge that, in part, stems from those failures feels to me both just and condign.

I do love a redemption arc. This one's a doozy.

The key to a solid, entertaining thriller, then, is turned: I'm invested in the set-up and the characters. I care about the stakes...a child's life is precious to a father, doubly so to a grandfather, and these are real relatable emotional states for Winston to occupy.

The next hurdle for a thriller to make a good impact, as opposed to a stinky splat, on me is the storytelling. The voice of the PoV character, or the use of an omniscient narrator; the pacing, the setting's depth, the blend of familiar and novel elements in this; and crucially the organization...how long are the paragraphs? the chapters?...all must reinforce each other for the trick of suspension of disbelief to work. Someone writing sentences as long as mine isn't writing a thriller, they're writing a mystery. Happily, Author Lindstrom is the veteran of many scripts read and enacted, so he grasps with a sureness born of experience the need for dialogue to serve a purpose or be left on the cutting-room floor.

I am unsurprised therefore to give him full marks on the craft of writing dialogue. I take away a star, paradoxically, for not listening to the effect of all the swearing. There are a few people reading this who are howling with laughter at my statement. I'm "foul-mouthed" as many a pursey-lipped prude has told me over the years.

Reinforcing the horror trope "the call is coming from inside the house."

If *I* noticed this facet of the dialogue, many others did too, and either checked out or gave up and Pearl-Ruled the book.

A thing I felt was...underdeveloped? glossed over? not explored to the extent needed to justify its centrality?...was the pervasive illicit-drug use. Winston passed the curse of addiction to his child. That is the igniting incident of the entire plot. I expect that to be more of a topic of either reflection or regret rather than a background taken for granted. If a character's failings are the reason they are in enough hot water to justify a thriller, it feels careless for the author not to offer more than passing acknowledgment of that reality.

While I know Author Lindsrom has portrayed a LOT of flawed characters in his acting career, that shows in this case. Scripts do not ever have room for exploration comparable to that in a novel, so I'm observing the need for a good storyteller to shift gears, not develop a missing skill.

I really hope this is not the last novel I'll read from Author Lindstrom. I liked Winston, and wouldn't pass up a second book featuring him. I think the thriller world can use some older men doing their best to offer amends for past wrongs, errors, and omissions.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME TRAVEL, debut SF time-travel Lesbian-led thriller

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TIME TRAVEL
KATE MASCARENHAS
Crooked Lane Books (non-affiliate Amazon link; the publisher's site does not have any information about this title)
$7.99 Kindle edition, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In 1967, four female scientists worked together to build the world’s first time machine. But just as they are about to debut their creation, one of them suffers a breakdown, putting the whole project—and future of time travel—in jeopardy. To protect their invention, one member is exiled from the team—erasing her contributions from history.

Fifty years later, time travel is a big business. Twenty-something Ruby Rebello knows her beloved grandmother, Granny Bee, was one of the pioneers, though no one will tell her more. But when Bee receives a mysterious newspaper clipping from the future reporting the murder of an unidentified woman, Ruby becomes obsessed: could it be Bee? Who would want her dead? And most importantly of all: can her murder be stopped?

Traversing the decades and told from alternating perspectives, The Psychology of Time Travel introduces a fabulous new voice in fiction and a new must-read for fans of speculative fiction and women’s fiction alike.

THE PUBLISHER APPROVED A DRC OF THIS TITLE VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Okay. This is hard. I can't explain why I didn't give this fascinating, layered, reality-twisting novel of ideas less than five full stars without spoilering the hell out of the ending.

Let me approach this from the side. I remember a few details from the past, when there was one digit in my age. I don't claim, at this late date, that they are factual and accurate; way too much time has passed, way too many things look completely different to my grandfatherly self than they *could* have to my kid self. So is that The Past, my version of the past, a fantastical creation of my imagination, some combination of these (and other) angles of view? Is something new created, something old altered, is there any way imaginable that this paradox could be resolved with technological time travel? Or would that just make things a lot worse?

“Maybe being in charge of time and space would give anyone a god complex, but she’s such a mean god.”

Reader, this novel does not answer those questions. It does not approach your experience of its story universe from the position of *giving* you answers; it demands of you that you spend significant mental energy creating answers for yourself, using the story's elements (note I did not call them facts) to sort out who actually intended to be good and create happiness for the greatest number of souls.

“Rules exist for a reason.”
“Yes, to stigmatize people.”
–and–
“Sometimes, we have a moral duty to break the rules. Particularly where the rulemakers are corrupt.”

The answer is not the one you expect it to be. Or it wasn't the one I expected it to be. So I think you're likely to be led down the strange and winding thread of the screw bolting the monster's head to their body, directly into a concrete slab, and left there to wonder just what exactly happened while you thought you were reading a fun little entertainment about women empowering themselves in the world of 1967.

“Remember that. When you go, you want to have people you love to think about. You need enough money to feed yourself, and a sense of purpose is nice. But the rest is superfluous.”

And you'll like it.