Last Looks

A razor-sharp, exquisitely paced, madly fun debut thriller that gleefully lampoons Hollywood culture and introduces the highly eccentric yet brilliant ex-detective gone rogue: Charlie Waldo. There are run-of-the-mill eccentric Californians, and then there''s former detective Charlie Waldo. Waldo, a onetime LAPD superstar, now lives in solitude deep in the woods, pathologically committed to owning no more than one hundred possessions. He has left behind his career and his girlfriend, Lorena, to pay self-imposed penance for an awful misstep on an old murder case. But the old ghosts are about to come roaring back. There are plenty of difficult actors in Hollywood, and then there''s Alastair Pinch. Alastair is a onetime Royal Shakespeare Company thespian who now slums it as the "wise" Southern judge on a tacky network show. He''s absurdly rich, often belligerent, and typically drunk--a damning combination when Alastair''s wife is found dead on