By JERRY BUCK

LOS ANGELES (AP) — As a television writer for the Associated Press in New York and Los Angeles I interviewed many celebrities, but I never once thought I'd get to interview — you.

My pleasure. Now that you — me — has retired what are we up to?

Still writing about television. The difference is the celebrities I interviewed made up stuff that sounded real. Now it's my turn to make up stuff that sounds real.

My just-published murder mystery "A Blood Red Rose" is a story of reality television run amok.

Wait. Reality television has already run amok.

Big difference. In real life the body count is low. "A Blood Red Rose" tells of the re-creation of a legendary unsolved Hollywood murder. And, oops, during the taped reenactment the old killer bumps off the executive producer. Same place, same way.

Was it during sweeps month? Probably, to boost the ratings.

When did we start writing fiction? As soon as I could put pen to paper. I sold my first short story when I was twenty. Haven't sold another since. I started writing books later. Much later.

When I began covering television, first in New York, then in L.A., there were three networks, video cassettes were a pipedream, DVD and pay-per-view were unheard of, and cable was Community Antenna Television for people in areas far from a station.

Wanting to write books is endemic among newspaper reporters. Before my time "Damn Yankees" came out of the New York Bureau. In my time: "Wise Guys," "Black Sunday," "Silence of the Lambs," and more.

You're saying it took you longer?

I had a lot to learn. Nor could I settle on what to write, or in what genre. I wrote and published a Western, then the market faded. I switched to mysteries.

You're a mystery fan, then?

Yes, but qualified. I've read some great mysteries. I've also read some absolutely dreadful ones. Like anything else, a small percentage are great. A larger percent are readable. The rest I've never figured how they got published, and I imagine their authors will say the same of me.

Truth is, I enjoy writing mysteries more than reading them. There are certain--not rules, but precedents you must follow. After that, anything goes.

With your background, do you blow the lid off Hollywood? No, and I also avoid clichés like the plague. Hollywood books are a dime a dozen, to coin another phrase.

Hollywood is glamorous, its people are celebrated, and nearly everyone reads about it. Newspapers and magazines are filled with stories about the foibles of stars, their marriages and divorces, their accomplishments and their downfalls, and in a few cases their murder trials. Because of this saturated coverage, fiction has to give the reader more. An insight into the hidden inner workings of a very public industry.

"A Blood Red Rose" isn't about real people or real events. The goal is to draw upon my experiences and observations to make readers think they're real. The term is verisimilitude. I saw plenty of temper tantrums, ego trips, and power plays to draw upon. Then, you jiggle it so that a character seems familiar.

This mystery is about a 40-year-old unsolved murder of a matinee idol at a wrap party at his home. His co-stars were suspects, and they're still around. Over time, it became a legend to jump-start the sweeps ratings, and the home became a park and site for séances with the departed.

Pete Castle is a writer of cop series and movies who's called upon to write the re-creation by executive producer Clark Kester. I can't remember where the name Pete Castle came from, but I live near the intersection of Clark and Kester streets. At one time the co-creator of "Rhoda" and "The Bob Newhart Show" lived next door.

No, he's not the model for Pete Castle. Nor is it my son Scott, a co-executive producer and writer for "Six Feet Under."

Modestly, I would have to say it's me. That's the best way to keep track of the eccentricities and traits of a main character.

In his amateur attempt at investigation, Pete is aided by his father, a retired stunt man and head of studio security, and girlfriend, who owns her own PR agency. Plus a stock company of Hollywood stereotypes twisted into originals.

He digs up ghosts from the past to find the killer, and discovers the long-assumed motive for the murder is a cover-up for more explosive secrets. Along the way he also rattles skeletons in his own closet.

Have you written more of these?

Now that you ask, yes. Pete becomes embroiled in a fight for the screen rights of a best-selling novel. A schlock producer seizes upon it as a means to win the awards he has long felt he deserves, and in a way he gets his just deserts.

In the works — that's authorspeak for hold your horses — is a mystery set in 1920s Hollywood, when only the movies were silent. (Feb. 20, 2004)