Shooting Script

Screenwriter, novelist ( The Bottletop Affair ) and Edgar-winning TV writer Cotler sets this nifty bicoastal mystery in the unsavory milieu of network TV. Writer Byron ``Mike'' Saldinger is about to sell a career-saving TV series when Niko Stavros, a New York writer who claims Mike stole his story idea, is thrown out the window of his L.A. hotel room. Mike becomes the LAPD's chief murder suspect. His slimy producers rush to get the series going; his slimy agent seeks another writer client; a slimy network exec persuades him to commit a burglary in New York to find Stavros's ``original'' script. Mike eludes the LAPD, the NYPD and the mysterious killer who has targeted him with help from Al Vecchi, a puckish retired New York City cop and TV consultant. Cotler's brisk, intricate plot, his TV-biz setting and his cast--especially the winning Vecchi--all satisfy, as does the story's neat surprise ending. (Dec.)