DIGGING JAMES DEAN

A death in the family reunites ex-con turned paparazza Nina Zero with her long-lost sister, who now touts herself as a successful real estate agent from Seattle. Who cares if the sister looks like she's lived a life as battered and fake as the designer-brand luggage she totes? With an abusive father and sweet but distant mother, Nina has been estranged from her family for so long she's happy to have a relative she can talk to.

And Nina is too busy to question her sister's tale, because an altercation with a has-been Hollywood action hero leaves her with a concussion, two broken cameras, and a hot lead in the grandmother of all tabloid stories- -- the mysterious thefts of celebrity bones from graveyards around the country.Are the bone robbers kids playing games with the devil? Cult scientists intent on cloning dead movie stars? Or members of the Church of Divine Thespians, a shadowy Hollywood sect that may be plotting some unholy ritual? In the world of tabloid reporting, the impossible is not only possible, it's required.

Not being famous is worse than being dead in Hollywood, where the bones of dead celebrities are literally worth killing for. Murder follows an unexpected betrayal, and Nina's quest for the grave robbers twists from the tabloid assignment to a grief-stricken vendetta that matches her camera against their guns, shot for shot.

With her sidekick Frank -- a slovenly assassin of celebrity reputations -- and her beloved toothless Rottweiler in tow, Nina returns to the page in an emotionally riveting tabloid thriller fit to please her own cultish following.