Bottom Feeders: A Novel

By John Shepphird

“I absolutely devoured this book, and still can’t believe it’s a debut novel…I’ll be waiting for whatever he writes next!” —Steve Hamilton, New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author

A page-turning whodunit set in the wilds of a remote movie ranch, Bottom Feeders describes the hapless Hollywood cast and crew that eke out a living working on low-budget fare.

Their ambitious TV movie needs to be made fast and cheap, but a brutal murder grinds production to a halt. An approaching forest fire forces everyone to evacuate. In the confusion not everyone gets out. Eddie is the alcoholic director, Sheila the vulnerable camera assistant, Tom the self-centered actor, and Sondra the spurned sheriff’s deputy. Who will survive?

Death comes sudden and silent. The camouflaged killer’s weapon-of-choice is a high-tech hunting bow capable of firing razor-sharp arrows four hundred feet per second. The mysterious assassin has an agenda. Those left behind must find out what it is and who is behind this bloody slaughter in the fight for their lives.

“From years of experience fighting in the trenches of low-budget films, Shepphird has crafted a pulse-pounding thriller of page-turning fun.” —Andrew W. Marlowe, creator and executive producer of ABC’s Castle

“A crackling good yarn about the inner workings and intrigues behind the scenes of a Hollywood low-budget movie…Shepphird knows the terrain and gives the reader a deliciously voyeuristic view of the Hollywood dream factory at work. A great read!”—Clive Rosengren, author of Red Desert

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Apr 24, 2018
• ISBN: 9781538440827

John Shepphird

John Shepphird is a Shamus Award–winning author and writer/director of TV movies.

Reviews for Bottom Feeders

[billiebook · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I chose to listen to this because it's narrated by Bronson Pinchot and, although he did a great job, he just wasn't enough to save this one for me.

It starts off with a good scene involving a deer and a car and a rock and a mysterious stranger, but it then takes too long to introduce each of what will become the main characters. The plot could have been the kind of over-the-top that is ridiculously fun, but it was, instead, chock-full of cliched characters and a villain whose sole motivation is "voices." I might watch it as a movie if I ran across it on late at night but, as a book, it just didn't work for me.