The Hollywood we think we know is a marketing ploy based on selling glamour. Movie parties are about queueing for wilting Caesar salad without even a third-rate bimbo of a star in sight. Thriller writer Faye Kellerman no longer has illusions. She's been to the buffet and come away hungry. Now she has it all, but works hard to keep it.
"Nothing comes easy," she says. "Not even Hollywood."
She lives in Beverly Hills with multimillion dollar writer/husband, Jonathan Kellerman. She runs every day to stay slim in a city where you either look well or are a loser. She writes for around three hours daily to produce a book a year. She resides in a huge house and has four children, all of whom have aspirations to write.
Kellerman is also an Orthodox Jew, which she says, "keeps her grounded as a human being". And she wears Chanel-style suits which look the part but cost one-third of the designer's gear. And she can play the mandolin, supports children's charities and graduated as a dentist. Yeah, and mostly cooks her own meals.
Kellerman is in Dublin to promote her latest thriller, Stalker. Stalker is set in the police department of downtown Hollywood. She's not writing about the bright lights there, though she admits the film industry is impossible to ignore. "Everyone is affected by the movie industry. Everyone wants that perfect body."
Indeed, even the cops are calorie-conscious. Her main protagonist this time is Cindy, a rookie up against the men. She's young and not as bright as her Lieutenant dad, Pete Decker, whose crime-busting antics have made Kellerman's name. But Cindy's got instincts and thinks she's being followed. Who doesn't in LA? In real life, a police department there is devoted to security for stars who risk being stalked.
"I've got my contacts in the police," says Kellerman. "I hear what is going on. People can be pretty paranoid, but the stars are mostly busy getting up early to have marathon make-up sessions. Hollywood is somewhere people work, but they have to keep changing their telephone numbers all the time. Stalkers have incredible success in getting through to them and cracking codes. New technology isn't helping."
Kellerman's own household is busy, busy, busy. The house is large to accommodate separate his 'n' her studies, a full-time housekeeper and a secretary. But, despite the money and the need to write, Kellerman says she is a "hands-on" person. "I do most of the cooking and all the organising," she says. "I'll even sort out the laundry and go ahead with washing it if it's been a long weekend."
She's made enough money to lounge beneath a tree all day. "Sure, I could give up the work, but something in me wants to keep going, some sort of volition. I am busy because I choose to be. It's self-imposed. It's how I am. We've enough money, so we're not hurting. Life is perfect because we've made it so, but we've had our bad times in the past - like family deaths."
Svelte, with copper highlights in her hair and just about the right side of 50, Kellerman was born in Missouri, grew up in LA and met her husband Jonathan as a student. They both helped out in her father's deli store. She went to college to study maths and then dentistry, but didn't practise. "Anyone who wants dental work from me is in big trouble," she says.
She married young, and her husband started writing and getting nowhere fast. It was 13 years before a publisher even sniffed at his work. His wife also turned her hand to writing, and it took reams of rejection slips before she, too, hit upon the successful Decker.
"Believe me, the beginnings were modest and we were pretty poor." She stresses she isn't into writing formula novels, however. "I want to try something different every time," she says. "There's no point in rehashing things. I like to come up with new phrases and ideas and be original. Writing is therapy for me. I have to do it. I like it. I'm sorry if the fans are disappointed sometimes when I change track, but I have to keep on moving."
SHE and her husband don't collaborate on their work. "We want to keep our marriage intact. We tried to write a comic novel together once, but it was so unfunny it could have been read at a funeral. We read each other's manuscripts, but we don't help each other in the writing," she says. "The part that gets easier about writing is you don't panic as much any more. The actual part of trying to think up new stories gets harder, but then there's no point in writing unless your language is fresh."
Judaism is part of what Kellerman is, and is being woven into her novels. "We never work on the Sabbath, and a lot of the day before is spent preparing the meals to eat on that day. I don't do signing sessions on Saturdays, either. It's accepted now, even if it's the day the crowds come." Neither does she jog on the Sabbath.
The eldest of Kellerman's four children, 23-year-old Jesse Kellerman, is working on a novel and has a play coming to this year's Edinburgh Festival. "Writing is legitimised in our household," says Kellerman. "All the children are interested in writing in some way. Even the youngest is writing at nine. We don't push it, but it happens."
Kellerman reads crime fiction by John Harvey, a current favourite. She also has a travel book by Bill Bryson tagging along, likes blue grass music, goes to movies and is learning German. "There's more to life than money. I know that," she says. She sometimes accompanies her husband on the mandolin. "He plays the guitar. In fact, he collects guitars." How many? She hesitates. "Well, he has about 90," she says, half-embarrassed.
No wonder they need a large house.
Stalker is published by Headline at £5.99 in UK