FICTION

VERY VERY SLIGHTLY IMPERFECT by Ron Moody (Parkwest Publications: $16.95;). Like Dan Wakefield’s recent “Selling Out,” this work of fiction was inspired by its author’s labors in the Hollywood TV vineyards. (Moody was the star of the very short-lived sitcom, “Nobody’s Perfect,” in 1980. Others will remember him as the likable villain Fagin in the movie “Oliver.”) Unlike Wakefield’s novel, this is a woozy, undisciplined yarn that, in its final chapters, makes a wild, unsuccessful shift in genres. Most of “Imperfect” is a readable, mildly fanciful tale about a logical, honorable British playwright who gets caught up in the illogical, dishonorable world of American television, falls in love with his boss’ mistress and produces a hit series. Then, just as we are beginning to care about hero Sam Wordsmith and enjoy his company as he shuffles along Rodeo Drive on his quest for truth in television and a proper Jewish wife, he changes from super-writer to superman and his story degenerates from comic novel to comic book. In the last 40 pages, Moody introduces a couple of murders and an armed tower in the heart of Hollywood that Sam must enter to confront an evil cybernetics genius who is hell-bent on world conquest. Or at least the conquest of Beverly Hills. It’s the sort of weird amalgam of Philip Roth and Robert Ludlam that not even Blandish International would buy.