Blonde Lightning: A Novel

By Terrill Lee Lankford

Book Overview

In Earthquake Weather, Terrill Lee Lankford mined his own experiences as a player in the glamorous, ruthless movie business to create a West Coast noir hailed by T. Jefferson Parker as "part Raymond... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345467795
• ISBN13: 9780345467799
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.1" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

Disturbing story of Hollywood and good intentions gone bad

Out of a job and virtually unemployable in Hollywood, Mark Hayes decides to take the risk of linking up with a low-budget film. His neighbor, screenwriter and director Clyde McCoy, has decided to do one more film, and has lined up a star, partial financing, and a crew. He offers to take Mark on to help with the babysitting that movie-making always entails. Although Mark has been in the industry, even that didn't prepare him for the escalating problems. Clyde's girlfriend, a kung fu star, has been harassed by a movie critic--who escalates his attacks to an insane level, finally sabotaging Clyde's brakes to the point where they fail spectacularly. When even that doesn't satisfy him, Clyde decides he needs to resolve the issue--and talks Mark into going to Las Vegas with him to hire a connected mobster to threaten the movie critic into backing off. If a deranged movie critic is a problem, though, an angry mobster hitman is an even bigger problem--and the Mark is dragged along as the dangers escalate. Author Terrill Lee Lankford does an excellent job describing the under-seam of Hollywood. Far from the lethargic shoots of big-name stars and high-ego directors lies the B-film industry--still churning out movies in weeks rather than months or years, at budgets that wouldn't pay the hair stylists in some of the big film budgets. The business can be a trap for the creative, and a moral swamp as well. BLONDE LIGHTNING is a disturbing story. Every step Mark makes puts him deeper in trouble until every choice seems closed to him. There are no happy endings here, no goodguys beating off the forces of evil. Instead, it's a matter of shades of gray. Still, Lankford's writing is strong and his characters feel very real.

The Touch Of His Hand

If you are one of those mystery readers, like me, who hates to read the sequel of a book you haven't read, I'm here to tell you that BLONDE LIGHTNING is much more of a stand alone book than you might have guessed. I haven't read EARTHQUAKE WEATHER so I came wary to BLONDE LIGHTNING knowing that it takes place five days after the events of the previous book. But I plunged right in and soon found myself delighted to know I didn't need to know much more than Tankford sees fit to tell us. He is a natural born entertainer and a Hollywood insider, who seems born to know his way around alcohol, women and B movies, and the people who make them. Mark Hayes, his down on his luck hero, has a partner called Clyde McCoy, and both of them are on fire to get a certain script made called BLONDE LIGHTNING, hence the title. It's the weird Los Angeles season when O J Simpson made a run for it on national TV (summer, 1994). Hayes and McCoy enter into a dubious partnership with a "civilian" producer as it were, a Christian millionaire who has reservations on the script, which has too many swear words in it. Nevertheless he says go ahead, providing the boys can find room on the set for his son and daughter to be interns or associate producers or some vagye credit. Even with Tremayne Harris' financial imput, the movie is still one of those no-budget wonders, the kind that Karen Black has been reduced to acting in. (Miss Black has a wicked cameo in chapter twenty, proving again, she's not only a talented actress, but she's a good sport as well.) "Goodbyes were said all around, and the Harris xlan left happy. No one ever mentioned the fact that Karen had been wearing a straitjacket the entire time. I guess they figured she was a big enough star that she could dress however she wished." Beyond being an amusing satirist and a first-rate plot spinner, Lankford also knows how to create sensitively drawn characters. Is it heresy to say that in this regard he's better than Raymond Chandler? Chandler's women always seem to me to have been created by a man who went to an English public school or married a woman thirty years his senior--oh wait, he did both things. In any case, Lankford has a gallery of interesting female characters, chief among them Tracy, the beautiful yet sad actress whose mastectomy has made her loath to love again. Lankford has a beautiful scene between her and Mark Hayes. "I touched her hand. A fireball suddenly filled the sky in the far northwest of the Valley." All in all a book to take to heart.

Good book with plenty of tension

After the death of his girlfriend and the murder of his last boss, Mark Hayes finds himself on the outs in the movie making industry, where rumor, innuendo and even a hint of a bad luck can make or break anyone. He's certain that if he lays low for a while his bad luck will become yesterday's news and once again he'll be working on a big budget movie. But until then he takes a gamble on his boisterous, hard drinking neighbor Clyde McCoy's script and agrees to work on his next independent low budget film A well known once very popular action star is using his name and money to get the backing for movie, and when a new and upcoming leading lady also signs up, Mark has a glimmer of hope that the film, now also directed by Clyde, just might be something good and might make a profit. He decides to let Clyde have a few thousand of his meager savings and buys into the movie. When he sees how dedicated the low paid crew is and how hard Clyde is working, Mark takes his title of associate producer seriously. He's actually getting a little excited about the Industry again, he's working all hours, doing the small jobs that need to be done. He's even taken time from seeing his newest lady friend to do his job well. But behind the scenes, trouble starts to take over. Clyde's girlfriend has an enemy in Hollywood, a wanna be star-maker who is broadcasting that she owes him money. After publicly calling him out and embarrassing him, Clyde is now also on the guy's most hated list. When small annoyances on the set start occurring that grow into almost deadly accidents, Clyde knows who is responsible and decides that something has to be done to make it stop. He calls on muscle from Vegas to handle it, and things start to go bad real fast. BLONDE LIGHTNING by Terrill Lee Lankford is a fast paced book. The first part takes you behind the scenes in the movie business in a realistic and fascinating way. There is just enough information on the business aspect of movie making, spiced with some well-crafted characters that will keep you glued to the book. But the second section brings in plenty of tension, little by little building it until the readers will also feel fear-sweat form on their upper lips. Though it would make a fine modern film noir itself, BLONDE LIGHTNING is also a great read.

breezy Hollywood amateur sleuth tale

Hollywood studio executive Mark Hayes is angry with his neighbor screenwriter Clyde McCoy for ignoring his grief at the death of his last conquest. However, Clyde apologizes insisting he does not do death well even as his girlfriend black belt Emily Woolrich blames Mark for Clyde drinking. Clyde tells Mark he has a great script that has backing. Mark is interested because he read Blonde Lightning and thought this had good possibilities. As they begin production on the film, accidents occur that Mark thinks is deliberate; Emily believes it is her former "agent" Mace Thornburg a nasty person feeling she jobbed him out of a fee. Not willing to sit idly by as his movie is being ruined; Mark investigates the incidents that have escalated into murder and sent Clyde into hiding. Terrill Lee Lankford cleverly uses the opening reels to set the stage for the key players in such a manner that the audience knows how they tick and understands the relationships between them; this comes in handy later in the tale. Once the movie starts shooting, the action takes over and goes non stop as Mark tries to save his film from ruin. Fans of Hollywood amateur sleuth tales will want to read the breezy BLONDE LIGHTNING. Harriet Klausner