West of Paradise — Gwen Davis

Kate Donnelly, an aspiring writer, has made her way to Los Angeles intending to rub shoulders with celebrities and be a writer. She dreams of walking down the same streets where Alec Baldwin drops of his dry cleaning. She has come to Los Angeles to pick up the fallent standard of her literary hero, F. Scott Fitzgerald, who loved all things that were just out of reach and whose last great obsession had been with Hollywood and its peculiar industry. And so, prepared to immerse herself in all that is Los Angeles, Kate heads straight to Westwood Mortuary, the city's most celebrity-packed cemetery (Marilyn Monroe is there), to attend the celebrtiy-packed funeral of the renowned and despised Hollywood producer Larry Drayco--a man who successfully slept his way to the top. Kate soon finds herself masquerading among strangers who can't distinguish between hemingway and Fitzgerald, and mixing with ex-duchesses, major players, private detectives, scrofulous publishiners, aging enfants terribles, dealmakers, and philosopher/gurus as she makes her way in this foreign land.

Perceptive, witty, and wise, West of Paradise is terrific fun.