Commuter book review: Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis

I remember fondly when, as a young junior high student, my grandmother bought me "Less Than Zero."

Seriously, she did - that and a bottle of Anais Anais.

It was a simpler, more innocent time, when high school coke parties and the gang rape of a tied-up teenager really held the power to shock.

So, how would these characters age, I wondered, as they entered the hazy shade of winter of life?

Mr. Ellis had a surprise in store. (He's a bit of an underrated writer, I think, often full of surprises.)

Not that amoral and thoroughly unpleasant Clay became a screenwriter. Hee hee - that's a Hollywood joke as tired as this season of "Entourage." And there's nothing quite so good as Patrick Bateman and colleagues drooling over the paper stock and font of a business card.

However, over the past 25 years, Mr. Ellis (Mr. Easton Ellis?) discovered the literary device known as "plot."

Accompanying the satire was an actual murder mystery.

I'm a veteran of numerous "Law and Order" reruns and I deemed it pretty good in most parts.

Just swap out Jerry Orbach (R.I.P.) for model-actresses, model-hookers, producer-d**chebags and the sleek, soulless backdrop of LA. With lots of coke and numb, soulless, transactional sex.

Imperial Bedrooms - perfect for the numb, soulless Monday morning commute.