cover image Keep It Real

Keep It Real

Bill Bryan, . . Bleak House, $24.95 (325pp) ISBN 978-1-932557-37-4

TV writer and producer Bryan spoofs, satirizes and burlesques his way through that kingdom of sin and sizzle, Hollywood, in this uneven, coarse but funny debut crime novel featuring Ted Collins, a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter turned reality TV producer. Ted works for one of reality TV's biggest hits, The Mogul (any resemblance to The Apprentice is not coincidental). His journalism career, and the rest of his life, derailed when his wife left him for an attorney and took him for virtually everything he had, including his darling seven-year-old daughter, Hallie. An unlikely confluence of events (a key promotion, a chance encounter and the disappearance of a lovely model) gives Collins a chance to get his investigative talents back into play and also to earn better terms for seeing Hallie. Bryan's humor is often adolescent, but when he lifts his aim to skewer targets like the manipulations that make reality TV a farce or the perils of race relations, he shows a real gift for satire. (May)