Romance writer Ross' hard-cover debut: the unlikely--but very glitzy and steamy--story of the star. crossed romance between an up-and-coming actor/screenwriter and a Hollywood studio exec. It's 1972, and handsome hunk Matthew St. James is fresh back from Vietnam, Purple Heart and Bronze Star in tow. When he's not pecking away at a screenplay, he's bartending at Beverly Hills parties--and at one of them he meets the powerful (and beautiful) second-in-command of Baron Studios, Leigh Baron, daughter of the legendarily evil Joshua Baron. Sparks fly, and she casts Matthew as the lead in her new movie, Dangerous, for which he wins a best actor Oscar. But father Joshua, who secretly yearns for Leigh in a most unfatherly way, separates the two by having Matthew tossed into a Mexican jail on a trumped-up drug charge. The two are reunited a few years later, however, and even get married, but are separated once again after Matthew is seduced by Leigh's nymphet sister, Marissa. Finally, it's 1981, and Leigh and Matthew (now a top screenwriter) reunite for a third time, after comparing notes about the perfidy of Leigh's family. Nothing can stop them now--except a possible assassination attempt on Matthew by a drug-crazed ex-employee of the now-dead Joshua. . . Unbelievably convoluted, but possibly worth a swing or two in the hammock.