How to write a 'Mystery'
CBS crime show spins off books
Posted Saturday, April 21st 2007, 4:00 AM
Former Daily News reporter Paul LaRosa is the author of the first ''48 Hours Mystery'' book.
The true crime genre has been a perennial in bookstores; everyone loves a good whodunit, after all. But the genre has exploded on television in recent years.
"Reality never disappoints," says Paul LaRosa, producer of CBS' "48 Hours Mystery." "The ring of truth is always compelling."
The CBS News magazine was rebranded "48 Hours Mystery" in 2004. Since then, it has consistently been the No. 1 (nonsports) show on Saturday evenings. Now the show has come full circle, inspiring a line of companion books with the "48 Hours Mystery" logo.
LaRosa, who was a Daily News reporter for 16 years before going to CBS News in 1992, has written the first book in the series, "Nightmare in Napa," which hits stores Tuesday. The "48 Hours" documentary about a bizarre double murder in California's bucolic wine country airs tonight at 10.
"The Devil is in the details," says LaRosa, "and we try to put as much detail as we can on TV. But we're limited. There's a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff that will never make air."
For instance, producers shot 150 hours of video on the Napa murders of best friends and roommates Leslie Mazzara and Adriane Insogna, who were brutally stabbed to death on Halloween night 2004. "48 Hours Mystery" first investigated the case for a segment that aired in 2005, when the killer was still at large. Tonight's hour includes the trial of the confessed killer, who was lurking in many of the shots from the original "48 Hours Mystery."
"He was the quintessential quiet guy," says LaRosa, of the killer. "He was so quiet that the police never interviewed him."
"Nightmare in Napa" (published by Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books, which is part of CBS Corp.) is LaRosa's second true-crime book. It won't be his last.
"I love to write," he says. Being a News reporter "taught me an appreciation for the crime genre.
"But the odd thing is that television is what enabled me to get back into print," he says, adding with a laugh, "[CBS doesn't] give me any time off to do it. I just do it in my spare time."
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