SHOOTING SCRIPT

When troublemaking Nicholas Stavros, who claims veteran TV writer Mike Saldinger plagiarized his script for the chancy new crime series Corrigan's Way, is killed, Mike's problems rapidly go from bad to worse—especially since his alibi, a California roller-bunny he knows only as Jenny, vanishes before he can introduce her to the police. Plus: Stavros's relatives still plan to press the suit; the network types start to back nervously away from Corrigan's Way; a knife- wielding burglar follows Mike to New York; and both Oscar Kornbluth, the network's development chief, and Al Vecchi, a Queens cop hired as technical consultant on the series, advise Mike to turn burglar himself in order to check out the script that Stavros claimed to have squirreled away. Cotler (Mission in Black, 1967, etc.) keeps the pot boiling merrily while dishing dirt on TV series development. And, yes, there's a zinger kept for the end, too.