Who among us hasn't contemplated murder when thinking of American Idol?  The shallow hosts, soulless performers, and the screeching studio audience has caused many serious music fans to wonder whether the show's runaway success is the defining symbol of the current poor state of the recording industry. 

Still, even its detractors cannot deny that its standing as a pop culture phenomenon is the product of an extremely effective, and entertaining, formula: the early rounds appeal to our sense of Schadenfreude, and by the time the train wrecks are eliminated, you are sucked into the natural drama of the competition. 

Author David Hiltbrand apparently feels the same way, and his new novel, Dying To Be Famous, uses a fictionalized representation of American Idol as the backdrop for the third novel in his series featuring Jim McNamara, "The Rock 'n Roll Detective."

Matt Hanes, a finalist on Star Maker and the clear favorite to win it all, is killed shortly after arriving in Los Angeles.  Fearing negative publicity, the producer begs the Los Angeles Police Department off the case, takes control of the situation in the press, and calls in McNamara.  Here is the first flaw of the book.  Star Maker is the most successful show on television, and we're supposed to believe that nobody in the Hollywood gossip community had checked their police scanners at the time and noticed that the LAPD were dispatched to the hotel where the contestants were staying, or that none of the guests or employees of the hotel placed a phone call to TMZ?  Such a conceit might have taken 50 years ago, when studios had people on the payroll to keep such information out of the press, but in the current climate, where there's good money to be made for such information, this is highly implausible. 

The producers give McNamara a sexy assistant, Roxie, and he also gets in touch with his friend Whitey, a Hollywood insider, who had helped him on his last case in Los Angeles. McNamara observes the rehearsals and briefly questions the possible suspects.  The hosts of Star Maker are doppelgangers of Simon, Paula, Randy and Ryan; and the remaining contestants embody characteristics recognizable to anybody even remotely familiar with the show: the handsome warblers, the kittenish white girls, and the large African American woman with a powerful voice.