Richard Osborne. Basic Instinct (1992) 233 pp. [pbo]
Novelization of the movie written by Joe Eszterhas and filmed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas. SFPD Homicide Detective Nick Curran investigates a brutal sex crime—the ice pick murder of Johnny Boz, a former rock star and San Francisco nightclub owner. The prime suspect is the victim’s girlfriend, a novelist named Catherine Trammell who had included a murder scene in her latest book that is eerily similar to the crime at hand. As Nick gets deeper into the case, he becomes involved in a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the manipulative and seductive Catherine. Since this book is based on the film, it follows the cinematic version very closely. Osborne does a very good job, however, describing various Bay Area locales, from Pacific Heights to Stinson Beach to Berkeley. Editor’s note: If you are actually going to read this book, I can recommend, from experience, doing so on the beach at Stinson …
Hubin