A Murder in Hollywood

The novel is narrated by Harvey Jason, a unit publicist assigned to a troubled Western called Bloodrock, shooting on location near Tucson, Arizona. Harvey promises to tell the real story behind a dead man found in a bathtub during the production. Bloodrock is an action-adventure set in 1885, starring Clete Williams and Brenda Conrad, produced by Charles Mann, and directed by Tom Franklin. The production has been plagued by setbacks, and tensions have risen over Sally Oldman, a young actress Mann discovered and whose part he keeps enlarging at Brenda's expense.

One Wednesday morning, Harvey receives a call from Greenblatt, the studio's head of production, informing him that Arthur McDougall, the film's screenwriter, has been found dead in his hotel room. Greenblatt is sending Harlow Perkins, a legendary insurance investigator feared throughout Hollywood for his ruthless thoroughness.

At the Holiday Inn, police are photographing the scene. McDougall's body lies slumped in the bathtub with a severe head wound. Mann, a large, wealthy man widely considered unintelligent, tells Harvey that McDougall simply drank too much, fell, and died. When Harvey mentions Perkins, Mann has never heard the name, which astonishes Harvey.

Harvey visits Clete, who admits he got into a fistfight with McDougall in the hotel bar the previous night after McDougall made obnoxious comments about Brenda. He hit McDougall once, drew no blood, and McDougall left. Unlike Mann, Clete immediately recognizes Perkins's name and warns that everyone in Hollywood fears him. Harvey next checks on Brenda, who reveals that after the bar fight, McDougall came to her room drunk and began shouting. Clete arrived and told McDougall to leave, and Mann appeared in the hallway, telling everyone to get some sleep. Harvey is troubled that Clete failed to mention this second encounter with McDougall.

Claude Binyon, the production manager effectively running the production while Mann is preoccupied with Sally, coordinates the crisis response. He immediately grasps the strategic brilliance of hiring Perkins: If the production employs him, the insurance company cannot use him against them.

Perkins arrives that afternoon projecting professorial detachment. He examines McDougall's room with Police Chief Art Corey, a local lawman overwhelmed by the case. The bed is made and unslept in. The desk holds a script, blank paper, a razor blade, and a rolled dollar bill suggesting cocaine use, but no liquor is found. The critical revelation: Every fingerprint in the room has been wiped clean, transforming what Harvey assumed was an accident into probable murder. Perkins seems unsurprised. He notes a sock near the door and asks Corey to check it for Camay soap, then insists they view the previous day's dailies, the rough footage screened each evening for the production team.

During the screening, Mann reacts with visible alarm when a particular scene appears. The missing film magazine, a removable cartridge holding exposed film, is confirmed to contain shots that must be reshot. At dinner, Mann describes his troubled relationship with McDougall, who leveraged his position as the only available writer to extort additional payments and antagonize the cast. Mann insists no one in the company would kill anyone.

The next morning, Perkins draws Harvey's attention to a camera report showing a seventh setup that was scrubbed, meaning the footage was rejected and withheld from printing. This is unusual for a director as meticulous as Franklin. Perkins interviews Millicent Pink, the script supervisor who found the body, and orders Harvey to have the three takes from the scrubbed setup secretly printed.

At the location, Perkins receives the autopsy results: McDougall died between four and four thirty a.m. from skull fracture, with high morphine and alcohol levels but no cocaine or cocaine by-products. No pipes were found in the room. Perkins interviews Clete, who reveals a young woman was in his room all night, providing an alibi.

Perkins assembles the remaining pieces. Ben the bartender confirms Mann demanded a bottle of J&B Scotch, McDougall's preferred brand, around closing time the night of the death. Perkins finds a photograph proving McDougall was right-handed and borrows a Nikon camera with a telephoto lens from the still photographer.

That evening, Perkins screens the secretly printed footage. The third take is explosive: Clete breaks the scene, shouting that McDougall has his hand down Sally's blouse. McDougall enters the frame and nearly fights Clete, who threatens to kill him. Harvey understands why Franklin scrubbed the setup: The director was protecting Mann from discovering McDougall and Sally's involvement. Perkins then interviews Max, the limousine driver, who confirms Mann stopped at a gas station Tuesday evening where both men briefly left the car unattended. At the station, Perkins recovers the missing film magazine from a trash can. Mann intended to destroy the footage but grabbed the wrong cartridge.

Perkins tells Harvey they must prevent another murder. At Old Tucson, he examines the storefront where a stunt using a nitrogen ram, a pressurized rig that yanks a performer backward through a plate glass window, is scheduled for the next day. He climbs to the adjacent rooftop and surveys the vantage point. Meanwhile, Harvey gathers corroborating information. Sally, drunk and upset after Mann hit her, admits she used to meet McDougall in his room. The girlfriend of Al Chadney, the stuntman scheduled for the nitrogen-ram stunt, reveals that Chadney supplied Mann with cocaine and procured opium for McDougall at Mann's request. Chadney's room overlooks the hotel corridor, and he could not sleep the night of the death, repeatedly checking his window.

The next morning, just as Chadney is about to perform, Perkins emerges from the storefront and insists the dummy go first for insurance purposes. Mann vehemently protests, but Franklin agrees. The nitrogen ram launches the dummy 15 feet into the air with catastrophic force, destroying the set. The pressure has been secretly increased from 300 to 500 pounds per square inch. Had Chadney been attached, he would have died. Chadney attacks Mann, and Perkins reveals he photographed Mann tampering with the equipment from the rooftop.

Perkins lays out his reconstruction for Greenblatt. Mann was trying to kill Chadney because Chadney witnessed Mann's movements the night of the death and was blackmailing him for $100,000. McDougall actually died from an accidental drunken fall. When Mann discovered the body, he panicked. Though innocent of the death, he felt implicated because he had wished McDougall dead. He wiped fingerprints with the sock, removed the J&B bottle and opium pipes, and planted the razor blade and dollar bill to suggest cocaine use, not realizing cocaine is chemically distinct from the morphine the autopsy would detect. He also arranged the desk items for a left-handed person, forgetting McDougall was right-handed.

Mann is never charged. He resigns as producer and is made executive producer with his financial stake intact. Chadney receives a stunt job at another studio, effectively bought off. At the film's premiere, Harvey sits in a restaurant when Clete stops by. As Clete signs autographs, Harvey notices he signs with his left hand. Perkins had accused Mann of arranging the desk for a left-handed person, but Mann only protested the accusation of cleaning the room, staying silent about more serious charges. Harvey wonders whether someone left-handed wiped the room and staged the scene before Mann arrived. He tells Clete he didn't realize Clete was left-handed. Clete freezes for a telling second, then puts his Hollywood smile back on and walks away. Harvey is left wondering whether Clete may have killed McDougall and staged the room. In Hollywood, he reflects, the difference between fake and real doesn't really matter.