Triple Platinum, by Stephen Holden

Though it’s admittedly hard to stop turning the pages of this sleazy potboiler, it’s even harder to convince yourself that the effort isn’t a total waste of time. Granted, there are some funny moments in rock critic Holden’s music-business novel, where industry executives seem to do little but sniff coke, plot murders, and engage in kinky sex. But the book, which bears almost no relationship to reality, has even less to do with good literature. If you’ve read Holden in Rolling Stone, you know that he can write; if you’ve read this, you know that—for the moment, at least—he’d rather make money.