Payola!

Bobby Holliday, the anti-hero of this harrowing and true-to-life novel, thinks he has it made. Not yet 30, married to a beautiful, affectionate wife, he's been promoted as vice-president of programming by a powerful radio network based in Los Angeles. The dark side is his arrogant self-confidence, exploitative behavior and inability to resist the blandishments of sex, drugs and under-the-table money thrown at him by mob-backed record promoters. These sleazy characters are apprehensive that he will interfere with their practice of bribing music programmers to play favored recordings, but Bobby proves to be oblivious to their chicanery. Eventually, however,he threatens to expose the record scam to the FBI, and seals his own doom. Cagle writes with great energy and authority (he is a long-time radio disc jockey), but the net effect on the reader of this edifying tale is depressing. The novel is timely, however, in view of an ongoing FBI investigation into industry payola. Author tour. (Mar.)