So I found this book to be inventive and interesting in ways I had simply not expected. The juxtaposition of perspectives actually elevates the narrative of erotic sequences into an odd place that gives it a unique take on the crime-noir fiction of the 40s & 50s. The multiple characters and blurring of reality and fantasy actually reminded me of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, replacing the comic book industry with the motion picture industry. There are a few missteps and a scene or two that don't ring quite true and at times the switches between first-person and third-person perspective are disconcerting, but. All this is woven into a tale that mixes real players and frictional characters that blur what and who is historical and who and what is authorial creation. There are even more members to this list that meander through a Hollywood tour that includes cameos by stars that reads like a Who's Who of greats of the silver screen. If it sounds like a cast of characters of epic proportions you are not wrong. While the focus is on Zeke Candy's budding career in the motion picture industry there are just enough detours through the investigation into the brutal death of another youthful actor into the twilight moments of the career of a silent era star and her tortured and neglected son into the observations of a maid and chauffeur into the life of a struggling screenwriter into the twisted distorted views of a hypocritical evangelist and into the investigations of a studio handler who's been given the job of tracking down who killed that youthful actor. What starts off seemingly like another Mississippi Hustler type story quickly transforms into an amalgamation of a fictionalized Hollywood expose and hard-edged crime investigation. Oddly enough it is both of these and neither. On the other hand I thought it might be like other books with such beautiful covers by Oliver Frey.

As this book is another offering from the publisher's Gay Pulp imprint it seemed perfectly reasonable that it would be a similar simple sexual escapade. On one hand I thought it was going to be like Rod Bellamy's erotic roller coaster Mississippi Hustler. What was I expecting? That's a really good question, because I'm not exactly sure. To start off this was not at all the book that I was expecting.

Mulholland Meat by Kip Nolan