THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 8, 1996 TAG: 9605090610
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY SUE ROBINSON SAIN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
IN THE MYSTERY serial genre, authors with names, followings and characters churn out a new book each year. Readers' expectations aren't the highest. The legions who seek out the serials are hooked already - on plots that keep them guessing but can be followed effortlessly from a beach chair or hammock and on a character whom they like.
Such voracious readers - hey, count me in - will surely grab Lynda La Plante's thriller ``Cold Shoulder,'' in which they'll find formula, predictability, room for improvement and a promising new character. This is a novel with a clear mission: to establish a Brit with screenwriting credentials in the American mystery serial scene.
My bet: Mission accomplished.
La Plante wrote screenplays for the gritty BBC/PBS series ``Prime Suspect,'' a two-time Emmy winner starring Helen Mirren. There, she broke ground with the invention of a complex, strong-woman cop; here, she offers the same with Lorraine Page, the flawed heroine introduced in an opening scene that shows La Plante's film savvy:
Scene one: In cinema verite clarity, police officer Page - in an alcoholic stupor - shoots dead a teenager armed with only a Walkman. Scene two: She's curled up drunk in the fetal position on the squad washroom floor. Scene three: Bathed in drink, she speedily self-destructs and loses her good life with a husband and daughters.
She then squanders her self-respect by selling her body on the Los Angeles streets that she once patrolled, and finally begins a journey of rescue and redemption when she lands in a hospital.
Over the next 400 pages, Lorraine is sketched out through flashbacks, another cinema trick. In real time, we meet a woman coming to terms with herself and the people she bumps into on the way.
Sober by happenstance, Lorraine is rescued by Rosie, a recovering alcoholic and hospital helper, who takes the down-and-outer - against all common sense - into her cramped quarters and lonely life.
As Lorraine creeps toward recovery, hunts for a job, tries Alcoholics Anonymous, finds a true gal pal in Rosie, remembers and reveals herself, stumbles and falls, turns from naughty to nice, she becomes, oops, a prime player in a chilling serial murder case.
After her police training kicks in, she has an opportunity to reinvent herself. While we root for her, there's no real doubt that she'll prove herself worthy, because the gal's got guile and grit enough to solve the mystery - of murders of blondes like herself.
And, gee, she's a real looker, too. This point is repeatedly made. Is this a makeover or a mystery?
Before we know it, the woman who's literally let herself go to the gutter is eating brown rice and vegetables, working out in a trendy gym, and smoothing the wrinkles from her Armani suit. Yeah, right.
La Plante's underbelly story is filled with twisted people, cross-dressers and transvestites, suggestions of sex abuse, decadence in high and low society, wealth and blackmail in old Hollywood and new Los Angeles. Every character has a touch of larceny and likability about him or her: the fat cop on the cusp of retirement, the filthy rich hunk, transsexual best buds Nula and Didi, Jake the former drunk doctor, and Art the gallery operator.
``Cold Shoulder'' resists succumbing to a predictable gotcha finish. Instead, the murderer is known early. The challenge, as in real police work, is not in the knowing but in the proving and in the psychological song and emotional dance of interrogation. And, as in any good yarn, things are not always as they seem. But that's another film trick.
La Plante has a reputation for research: The story was inspired by a real woman's experience. La Plante hung out with prostitutes and cruised the streets. The AA scenes and the angst of addiction ring true. Her filmmaker's ear and eye provide conversational dialogue and telling description. But La Plante falters in creating a sense of place: Her Los Angeles is flat.
She also offers far too many coincidences. That our heroine goes from skid row to Rodeo Drive, that the final pages set up a sequel, that the second book is already in print in Britain and that Michelle Pfeiffer has reportedly optioned ``Cold Shoulder,'' add to the sense that this is as much a marketing endeavor as a book.
``Cold Shoulder'' cries out to be a movie. And Lorraine Page is interesting enough for mystery readers to make her a star. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
BOOK REVIEW
``Cold Shoulder''
Author: Lynda La Plante
Publisher: Random House. 415 pp.
Price: $24
by CNB