Everybody Smokes in Hell

With his clipped, jagged prose and darkly imaginative plots, Ridley has proven himself as one of the new chroniclers of the rot that some find festering beneath the glistering veneer of Los Angeles. Here, he's in good form, slashing out a black comedy that may be a little too disturbing for some tastes, but is nonetheless memorable. In Ridley's city of unattainable dreams, Paris Scott is its personification. He works the night shift at a scuzzy Hollywood mini-mart, drives a '74 Gremlin and was recently declared a loser by his ex-girlfriend. But Paris finally gets his break: he comes into possession of the last musical works of rocker Ian Jermaine, just before the star commits suicide. Paris tries to sell the tape for $1 million but quickly finds that several people would rather kill him for it. Also in Paris's possession--unbeknownst to him--is a large quantity of cocaine that a different set of killers want back. After Paris clumsily dodges several murder attempts, he flees to that other city of tacky dreams, Las Vegas, where the mayhem continues. The narrative is peopled by all sorts of misfits and undesirables--oily Hollywood agents and their insufferable sidekicks, ignorantly vicious drug dealers, tragically hopeful immigrants and a beautiful expert at torture who savors the driving beat of Bachman-Turner Overdrive while inflicting pain on her victims. There's a moral here--that there are no easy roads to success and fulfillment--and Ridley (Stray Dogs; Love Is a Racket) gets around to that point after all the blood is spilled. His writing may ooze bitter disdain for L.A., but it's clear that the city fascinates him just as much as it repels him. Though his strong, conversational voice carries the story, one hopes that next time around he'll put his talent to work on a plot with more depth and substance. (Sept.)