Suspenseful ‘Fun & Games’ truly fun to read

“Fun & Games” by Duane Swierczynski is the first in a trilogy featuring ex-Philadelphia cop Charlie Hardie, who was nearly killed on the job.

Charlie retired from the force and became a professional house sitter, moving around the country and baby-sitting other people’s homes. His new gig is in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles County, where he’s supposed to take care of a house that’s owned by a movie soundtrack artist who’s away in Europe.

When Charlie flies into LAX and discovers his suitcase has been lost, it’s only the beginning of a really bad day. He rents a car and drives up to the Hollywood Hills where the house is located. He quickly finds out that the house keys aren’t in the mailbox where they’re supposed to be, so he has to climb the roof and make his way to the back, hoping to get in through the rear door. Charlie does manage to get into the house, but it turns out he’s not alone. Hiding on the bottom floor is the owner’s girlfriend, Lane Madden, a midlevel actress on the verge of stardom.

Lane tells Charlie that someone tried to kill her on the highway during the early morning hours, and now she’s afraid to go home. Charlie thinks she’s crazy because she believes the killers are actually outside the house waiting to finish the job. The thing is she’s right. Charlie soon learns that there are some very skillful killers after her and that they don’t have a problem with taking him out, too. He’s just collateral damage.

Fortunately for Lane, Charlie is no ordinary ex-cop. He was a government killer long ago, and he hasn’t forgotten his special job skills. He’s also a very difficult man to kill. The Accident People, as Lane refers to the killers, are being employed by some heavy Los Angeles hitters who want Lane to die. But her death needs to look like an accident. That’s the specialty of the Accident People. In fact, that’s how a lot of famous Hollywood stars have died over the past 50 years: murders made to look like drug overdoses, car accidents, accidental drownings or suicides.

To get to Lane, however, they’re going to have to get through Charlie, and it’s not going to be easy. If Charlie’s going to have a bad day, he’s going to make sure everyone else has one, too.

“Fun & Games” is suspenseful and filled with priceless nuggets of Hollywood lore. It also had me laughing out loud in several places. You can tell that Swierczynski had loads of fun with the story and that he’s a major Hollywood buff. Each chapter begins with a line of dialogue from a famous movie. The thing that surprised me is that I already knew most of the lines and had seen the movies. Also, the author has a way of developing unique characters that sound like real people, yet are flawed in some unusual way.

Swierczynski certainly knows how to build suspense. He’s a true master of his craft and the genre. I’m eagerly waiting for the second book, “Hell & Gone,” to come out in October (the third is scheduled for March). I’m anxious to find out what happens to Charlie Hardie next and if the Accident People will be uncovered by the police and state authorities. You know I’ve always thought that actress Marilyn Monroe was murdered and that her death was faked to look like a drug overdose. This book added fuel to that fire.

Wayne C. Rogers is the author of the horror novellas “The Encounter” and “The Tunnels,” both of which can be purchased at Amazon’s Kindle Store for 99 cents each.