The Easy Way - 9781884092190

Howard Farrell once was a successful screenwriter who's now having trouble creating stories and impressing studio executives. Adding to his woes, his wife, Renee, decides to leave him, and his dog, Jakey, dies. Preoccupied with his problems, Howard hits a police car on the road and winds up in traffic court. Spotting a recruiting poster for the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, he realizes that's a way to come up with new script ideas. Since he's fiftyish and fat, everyone thinks he's crazy, but he signs up, nonetheless, for the training program for reserve officers. Although he finds the tests hellish and has an antagonistic relationship to B. J. (Bridget-Jolene) Dexter, his chief instructor, he survives the program and finds himself assigned to real-life crime cases. On one case, he and B. J. become sexually involved. Then Howard learns that his former talent agent and best friend, Murray Abromowitz, who recently joined an old friend in a business venture, has been killed by vicious thugs. Howard is assigned to work on the case and soon discovers it involves a dangerous sex trafficking operation that Murray unwittingly became involved with, after thinking he was working for a transportation company. Howard's law enforcement experiences cause him to reassess his life, put his screenwriting ambitions in perspective, and discover what is really important to him as a person.