Hollywood Underworld (A Hollywood Series) by Lindy S. Hudis
Publication date: August 8th 2021
Genres: Adult, Mystery, Thriller

Synopsis:
Nick Savage was supposed to be the next sexy Hollywood heartthrob, until he turned up dead!

His personal manager, Dani Foxx, is a seductive former actress with spunk, guts and a take-no-prisoners attitude. She lives in the Woodland Hills section of the San Fernando Valley with her teenage daughter. They must survive and protect each other in the world’s most glamorous and sin-filled city. Then an unidentified body discovered under the Santa Monica pier is found to belong to the up and coming young actor.

Dani’s partner, the dashing and charismatic A.J. Tarentella, is the son of a mob boss, raised in a ruthless crime family. He now is the proud owner of the Tarantella Agency, a Private Investigation Company located in the heart of Beverly Hills. He used his father’s work ethic, connections and family ties to build his powerful business empire, and now he is always there to help those in need.

When another gorgeous nubile actress on the brink of getting her breakout role mysteriously vanishes as the body of a beautiful young girl is discovered in Runyon Canyon park in the Hollywood Hills, Dani realizes this is no coincidence. Who is targeting young Hollywood stars? And more importantly, how can Dani stop them before the next body surfaces?

Together, A..J. and Dani find themselves tangled in a web of organized crime, Hollywood secrets, and a vengeful faded movie star with a lethal vendetta.

Excerpt

The San Fernando Valley set of The Shy Girl was hot, hectic and not very pleasant. Jennifer Connors stood close by the craft service table and munched away on a honey-flavored granola bar. It was her only sanity during this crazy film shoot. When she was anxious, she ate, and she had been doing a lot of that lately. After this movie wrapped, she would go back to her vigorous, daily workouts with her personal trainer and shed some extra pounds. She knew the drill, extra flesh on the belly of a female was just the beginning of the death spiral of an acting career, for an actress at least.

“Grazer!” A playful voice chided Jennifer. She turned around to see Tess, one of the A.D.s and one the few people on the crew she hit it off with.

“You know it! This is my dinner.” Jennifer teased in return and held up a half-eaten bar.

“Dinner? You’re too damn skinny as it is!” Tess opened a cooler and grabbed a cold bottled water.

“Please. I wish.” Jennifer chewed up the rest of her snack and glanced over at the action. The director, a young N.Y.U. film school graduate named Andy Tec was in a heated argument with the lead actor, an older gentleman by the name of Ross Mardsen. Ross was a huge television star back in the late seventies and was still in that mind frame. Sometimes, the most difficult actors were the ones whose time had passed, who were the has-beens. They didn’t want to see the reality that they were washed up and continued to behave like the petulant children they were in their heyday. Jennifer watched as Ross angrily flung his script on the ground, shouted various obscenities and stormed into his trailer, slamming the door behind him. Ross was notoriously difficult to work with, and his negative energy turned the whole set into a virtual warzone. If any of the actors and crew got out of line, chaos erupted. Jennifer hated working on sets like this and having to walk on eggshells. It was like something out of Dante’s Inferno, and if you weren’t careful, you could get burned.

“Low-budget filmmaking is bullshit!” Andy threw his hands up and headed over to where the girls were at the craft service table.

“Oh, let it go, Andy. You knew what you were getting into when you signed onto this project.” Tess handed him a bottled water, which Andy impolitely grabbed out of her hand and chugged. The heat of the exterior shoot was starting to become unbearable, and several of the crew members were not shy about voicing their opinion. Everybody seemed to blame Andy.

“So, are we just going to stand around in the fucking heat all day?” A disgruntled electrician barked over in their direction. The other crew members, knowing this was Andy’s maiden film project, all seemed to disregard the novice young filmmaker. Andy did his best to remain in a position of authority over the irritated actors and crew, even though they all seemed to walk all over him.

“Just set up the next shot, okay?” Andy was starting to lose patience while trying to maintain some modicum of composure. Tess, taking her subtle cue, scurried off. Andy had visions of creating art in the form of the motion picture, at least those were his idealistic views when he was studying film at Tisch School of the Arts. The reality of the business of filmmaking was an entirely different world, and Andy was growing cynical already.

“All this negativity is really starting to make me nervous.” Jennifer told him gently. She didn’t want to add to any problems, but this shouting and name calling was unfair to the other crew members and the actors. Jennifer could not perform when tense, especially on a difficult set. It made the actors nervous, unless, of course, you were a big star.

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About the Author

Lindy S. Hudis is an award-winning filmmaker, author and actress. Lindy is a graduate of New York University, where she studied drama at Tisch School of the Arts. She also performed in a number of Off-Off Broadway theater productions while living in New York City.

She is the author of several titles, including her romance suspense novel, Weekends, her “Hollywood” story City of Toys, and her crime novel, Crashers. Her latest release, “Hollywood Underworld – A Hollywood Series” is the first installment of a crime, mystery series.

In addition, she has written several erotic short stories, including “The S&M Club”, “The Backstage Pass”, “Guitar God”, “The Guitarist”, and “The Mile High Club”.

Her short film “The Lesson”, which she wrote, produced and directed, has won numerous awards, including ‘Best Short Film’ at the Paris International Film Festival, The Beverly Hills Arthouse Film Festival and the San Fransisco International Film Festival.

She is also an actress, having appeared in the indie film Expressionism, the television daytime drama “Sunset Beach”, also “Married with Children” , “Beverly Hills 90210” and the feature film “Indecent Proposal” . She and her husband, Hollywood stuntman Stephen Hudis, have formed their own production company called Impact Motion Pictures, and have several projects and screenplays in development. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Connect with Lindy on her website | Goodreads | Twitter