L.A. TIMES by Stuart Woods (Harper:...

L.A. TIMES by Stuart Woods (Harper: $5.99; 387 pp.). Woods’ agreeably trashy novel traces the career of Mafia enforcer Vinnie Callabrese, who transforms himself into Michael Vincent, golden boy producer-director. The plot, which recounts Vincent’s use of drugs, sex and even murder to get his films made, owes a good deal to “The Player” and “Prizzi’s Honor”; the moralizing finale is as unconvincing as it was in “Ghost.” But Woods’ salacious accounts of unsavory Hollywood goings-on make “L.A. Times” the ideal book to read on an Exercycle in a West Side gym.