Hollywood Hustle by Jon Lindstrom

Winston Greene is a weather worn action movie hero whose star is fading. Only gigs he can get now are B-grade Asian action flicks. And not many of them. Picture, maybe, Nick Nolte. 

Winston is a widower and a cancer survivor. Claire is his addict of a daughter who is married to Zeke, a bigger addict, and a lovely granddaughter. Nothing he'd like better than to get his daugher/granddaughter to drop that loser husband/father and move back in with him.  But the lovely couple has debts they are trying to run away from and the holder of the debts (Rocket) wants to be paid.

Rocket is a low level dealer who operates out of a bowling alley bar. He has two subordinates, Jordy (a large surfer) and Ozzie (a small mouthy hispanic). They work out a foolproof plan: kidnap the daughter and ransom her to Winston for 'all his money' (of course him being a famous, and rich, movie star, he's got to have a ton socked away). Once the kidnap happens and the ransom demand phoned in, Winston convinces a friend, Teddy (former New Orleans detective now LA PI)  plus Grover, his best friend, who is an in-demand stunt man. But no police. Given Greene's former notoriety, it's only a matter of time before some cop calls in a tip to a Hollywood tabloid. 

The book follows two primary plotlines. First, the idiots who dreamed up this scheme and what they try to do to minimize the fallout rapidly heading their way. Second, is the Winston's team tracing leads in an attempt to find Claire. It's imperative they find Claire because they don't know what the kidnappers will do when they learn that Winston is damn near broke. Actors apparently have little or no health insurance so Winston paid for his cancer treatments out of pocket, leaving him with only two tangible assets: his home (whose crumbling foundation means he could only sell it for pennies on the dollar) and a customized hot rod. 

Lindstrom has a 20+ year career working in Hollywood having acting, producing, directing, and writing credits on his IMDB.com page. By coincidence, while reading this, a commercial came on with Lindstom as the subject. He had a long-running role in General Hospital (491 episodes) and a few other standalone books. My partner in crime here at MRB would've called this 'An airport read' meaning a fund read that will distract you from the drudgery of travel. I'd read another.