THE FACE ON THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

Pepper-and-salt detective duo Rayford Goodman (right-thinking, 50-ish, worried about angina) and Mark Bradley (left-thinking, blow- dried, gay), linked only by mutual aversion and Rayford's unlikely romance with Mark's researcher friend Francie, are back for another Hollywood shoot-'em-up, commencing with the execution of director Claudio Fortunata as he's recovering from plastic surgery (a flawless killing except that it's not Fortunata under the bandages). Then the story moves to Claudio's home and the set of One Fell Swoop—where the mounting roll of homicides (now including the real Claudio) will be supplemented by such assorted felonies as theft (Claudio's leather- bound copy of the script), assault and battery (by two rival mobs), fraud (who's using wholesale murder to redirect the revenues of Claudio's last film?), and cat torture. As in Best Performance by a Patsy (p. 634), the roll-call of suspects—from the brainless stars to an excitable Hungarian camera operator to a professional hit-woman—will leave you reeling, which is more than can be said for One Fell Swoop. Better just unreel and enjoy Mark and Ray's endless, though oddly similar, supply of one-liners.