FICTION : LOW ANGLES: A STONEY WINSTON MYSTERY by Jim Stinson (Scribner’s: $13.95; 213 pp.).

In this second book by Los Angeles writer Jim Stinson, film maker Stony Winston is hired to complete a low-budget movie that has been plagued with accidents and setbacks and that has a producer mysteriously determined to lose money on the production.

There’s a lot to like in this amiable mystery. Stinson clearly knows very well the gritty world of low-budget Hollywood he writes about here and in his first book, “Double Exposure”: The details are well selected and convincing.

Also, Winston is a charming hero, with a distinctive first person voice, and is someone very easy to care about (though his alarming habit of carrying on conversations with imaginary people in his car is a bit much).

The major problem with “Low Angles” is that the stakes involved are just not high enough; who cares, really, if one more low-budget biker movie is completed? The old masters were right; there almost has to be a murder or two to keep a book-length mystery on track, or at least something more than professional survival at stake. The potential for this series is considerable, however; I suspect Winston will return.