Death By Hollywood (Fall 2003)

The TV titan finally gets a chance to use all those dirty words ABC won't allow on ''NYPD Blue'' -- and boy, does he make the least of it. Bochco's relentlessly vulgar first novel wants to be the literary equivalent of ''The Player:'' A screenwriter neglects to report a murder he witnesses just so he can develop the story into a script. But with its pedestrian bedroom scenes and casual sexism, ''Death'' feels more like a Jackie Collins potboiler rewritten by the editors of Maxim. Throw in moldy jokes and show-biz cliches (agents are ''well-paid pimps''; actors and writers are ''big self-centered spoiled-rotten babies''), and you've got Bochco's deadliest bomb since ''Cop Rock.''