As Time Goes by

In his second appearance (after Play It Again), PI R.J. Brooks, son of a legendary film couple, is enraged when Andromeda Pictures plans a sequel to his parents'Dand Tinseltown'sDgreatest movie, As Time Goes By. Because he has publicly wished the philistines responsible for this atrocity dead, he naturally becomes the main suspect when some of the yahoos are indeed eliminated. While the police try unsuccessfully to pin the crimes on him, TV producer Casey Wingate, his lover, accepts a job on the movie and heads for California. Then Mary Kelley, daughter of Janine Wright, the venomous head of Andromeda, asks him to locate her father; R.J. finds him on parole in Connecticut. When the killer starts threatening everyone working on the remake, R.J. heads to L.A. to protect Casey. As the killer strikes again, Mary's father disappears again, and R.J. begins a series of cross-country trips to work out two cases. Telling a tale full of set pieces from the movies, Bogart seems to be playing a bit of a con here. As the son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, he's capitalizing on their life (and collaborations, e.g., Key Largo and To Have and Have Not) as surely as the fictional Andromeda is exploiting R.J.'s parents and their work. Still, readers willing to overlook this harmless hypocrisy will be rewarded with a creditable whodunit. (Apr.)