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McDermid, Val

Star Struck

London, Collins Crime (HarperCollins). 240 pp. £16.99.

Kate Brannigan is 5'3" (usual costume being a Thai boxing kit), a fast-talking, computer-loving, white-collar-crime PI. Bills pile up. Needs must when the devil drives. She takes on a job she hates: looking after Gloria Kendal, a soap star. This requires a new talent, grinning and smiling while she clenches her teeth.

Gloria Kendal has been getting threatening letters. Gloria has been naughty on the screen. Were the letters from someone who doesn't know the difference between screen lives and real lives? After all, she was generous, always doing charity work, always making time for fans. Nobody who knew her would want to harm her!

Then her personal astrologer, the Seer to the Stars, gets murdered and the hunt is on.

This is an entertaining picture of the lives of the stars behind the TV screen, how they interact (having to make a living out of a business dependent on goodwill - no, no, no, not talent, goodwill) and how the series are shot.

The chapter headings will delight all those who look up their stars (that's the subtle hint in the title) as soon as the paper arrives and there is an array of characters we would all like to avoid, but often never do outside books.

Apart from many crime novels, Val McDermid has also written A Suitable Job for a Woman, about women PIs in real life.