Editorial Content for Pay or Play: A Charlie Waldo Novel

Before 2019’s BELOW THE LINE, when Charlie Waldo was an LAPD Level III detective, “his own zealous police work had led to the death of an innocent man.” Waldo atones by becoming an uber-minimalist, owning no more than One Hundred Things. Although a brilliant detective, common sense would make that 101 Things. Reluctantly, he teams up with Lorena Nascimento’s PI firm. She owns a few more than 100 things, specifically shoes --- and gadgets ordered daily from retailers delivered in multilayered packaging. Waldo views the pile of boxes at Lorena’s home as he would a dung heap of a herd at the zoo looking for a loo.

Lorena must coax Waldo into the investigator role. She opines, “This is what being a PI is, Waldo. People…come to you because their life is messy and dirty and often as not they made it that way themselves.”

"This whimsical life-in-L.A. satire is really a killer private eye thriller that will have fans begging for more. Please, Mr. Gould?"

One of those messy lives is that of a reality TV jurist unlike Judge Judy or any who presided on “The People’s Court” during its 37 seasons. Lorena gets Waldo hooked on a rising TV judge, knowing that he’s otherwise unlikely to take on a case involving a celebrity magistrate.

Jive-talkin’ potty-mouth Judge Ida Mudge condones, perhaps encourages, Jerry Springer chair-throwing antics from litigants in her TV show courtroom. Y’all rise, here come da Judge! “Bailiff Man” (Immanuel Nickerson) cheers on the more aggressive participants of the courtroom shark-feeding frenzy.

On the verge of syndication, Her Honor stands to earn a million dollars a day. Judge Ida engages Lorena and Waldo to investigate a million-buck blackmail demand and alleged claims of sexual harassment by previous male litigants, all seeking a payoff settlement. Even Bailiff Man wants a piece of the pie.

Fontella Davis’ high-profile law firm has the catchy motto and website, JustUs4ThePeople. Her penthouse corner office, the size of a small bungalow, offers a view of Catalina Island. Her firm has a scorched-earth approach to adversaries, poignant in that California is ablaze with wildfires at the time. “All the rich people [Waldo] was meeting on this case spent a lot of time counting other people’s money.”

As undergrads at prestigious Matthewson 35 years before, Ida Mudge and Fontella Davis were BFF --- until their mutual college chum Anthony Branch died in a hazing incident. Davis is now a powerful attorney and Judge Ida nemesis. Both live in L.A., where exclusion is replaced not by race, but by the mega-bucks one has. Or not. One of the few other African American Matthewson alumni, and friend of the legal rivals, is Morris Thurmond, now a dying preacher who ministers to Oakland’s needy. Rev. Thurmond tells Waldo, “People remember what they want to remember.” And, presumably, forget what really happened. Waldo learns that “Anthony wasn’t always what you’d call smooth with the ladies.”

Someone in a red Range Rover tries to make roadkill of Waldo while riding his Brompton bike. Several times. And then there’s drug kingpin Don Q and his doppelgänger, a vagrant found dead in a four-inch-deep fountain. All the cases seem related. A coincidence, or is Waldo closing in on which of the L.A. Legal Queens may have been responsible for Anthony Branch’s death?

This whimsical life-in-L.A. satire is really a killer private eye thriller that will have fans begging for more. Please, Mr. Gould?