The Prostitutes' Ball

Book 10: Shane Scully Novels

by Stephen J. Cannell

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

It's a few days before Christmas when Detective Shane Scully and his wife, Alexa, respond to a call in the Hollywood Hills. The crime scene is the pristine backyard swimming pool of a once-immaculate mansion on Skyline Drive, the site of an infamous murder decades prior, in which a family was killed in cold blood on Christmas Eve. In the ensuing years, the house has been shuttered and left exactly as it stood on that terrible night.
Shane and Alexa arrive to discover the after-math of a lavish party. The revelers have fled, leaving three dead bodies, all shot with the same gun. One is acclaimed film producer Scott Berman. The others, a pair of gorgeous women in their early twenties.
Scully is assigned to the case along with his new partner, Sumner Hitchens. Hitch has a reputation in the department as a self-promoter; he sold the story rights to one of his cases to a film production company - and he has the millions to show for it. Scully and Hitch begin to investigate, and the case looks to be open-and-shut: The two young women were hired prostitutes, and there's a security video of an angry husband firing on all three. A simple case of revenge.
But there's a catch: The detectives discover a single spent bullet casing that doesn't match the rest.
From that single bullet emerges a story that spans thirty years - a tale of love, murder, suicide, and one of the biggest financial frauds in L.A. history. It's a story fit for the screen - and Hitch is determined to get it there, no matter what it takes. But someone has gone to great lengths to cover up the crime, and as Scully and Hitch get closer to the answer, they find themselves in a killer's crosshairs. The case could be the makings of a blockbuster Hollywood film - but only if Scully gets out of it alive.
In The Prostitutes' Ball, master of crime fiction Stephen J. Cannell takes readers into a world he knows better than anyone: the place where moviemaking and law enforcement converge. What results is his most powerful, suspenseful, and entertaining novel yet.

Release date: October 12, 2010

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 320

Sample

1
This is a story about a story.

It's also a story which, despite all my efforts to the contrary, seemed destined to become a major motion picture.

It began a few days before Christmas, but it's not a Christmas story. It's about lost generations and emotional desertion, and about a Los Angeles family with way too much money. So I guess at its heart, it's a story about greed, corruption, and loss.

With those themes, what better place to start than at an office Christmas party? But before we begin, just a few preliminary remarks.

I'm a homicide detective, and as such, I'm carefully schooled in the three concepts mentioned above. I work at an elite LAPD detective division known as Homicide Special. Our unit was reconstituted after the O.J. Simpson case, another L.A. story of greed, corruption, and loss.

After losing that high-profile media trial, it occurred to our command floor managers that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to have homicide detectives carrying blood evidence vials around a crime scene where they could later be accused of planting it.

As a result, Homicide Special was completely reorganized and staffed with our most seasoned detectives. I'm lucky to be assigned there. It's a great gig.

My name is Shane Scully, and for this story I will be your host narrator. It's going to be a fast ride through L.A. with a lot of reckless driving. Look out for abrupt lane changes, freeway shootings, and dangerous hairpin turns. As a police officer, I'm required to advise you to fasten your seat belts.

All set? Then let's go. . . . Cue the opening theme music. Fade slowly up from black, and we'll begin at:


THE PROSTITUTES' BALL. Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. Cannell. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.