Wendy Ruderman & Barbara Laker's "Busted," the movie

Featured at My Book, The Movie: Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love by Wendy Ruderman and Barbara Laker.

The entry begins:

In my dreams, a Hollywood producer makes a movie out of Busted: A Tale of Corruption and Betrayal in the City of Brotherly Love, the book I co-authored with Philadelphia Daily News colleague Barbara Laker. In my nightmares, the director picks Zelda Rubinstein, the 4'3'' actress from the 1982 film Poltergeist, to play me in the movie ("Go into the light, Carol Ann!"). Then I wake up and realize: a) Zelda Rubinstein is way too old to play me and b) the 76-year-old actress died in 2010.

A gal can dream, however, and Barbara and I, along with our friends and family and what seems like the entire Daily News staff, spend time fantasizing about one day seeing Busted on the big screen, or even a little one as a television crime drama.

And why not? Although Busted is nonfiction, those who've read the book say they can visualize a movie or HBO series about two dogged journalists, both suburban moms, who find themselves plunged into a world of unsavory drug informants, violent drug dealers, thieving narcotics officers, pimps and prostitutes - all set against the backdrop of a flailing and bankrupt city newspaper. As author and columnist Lisa Scottoline put it, Busted reads like a turbocharged thriller, all the more compelling because it's true." And Edna Buchanan, a journalistic legend, said in a message that she left on my home answering machine, "It reads wonderfully and it will probably make a wonderful movie."

So, we dream. In our book, written together, literally side-by-side, but in my voice, Barbara is described as "oblivious to her ability to make men's heads turn." She has "long, wavy highlighted blond hair and a tangerine slice of a nose. Her big green eyes, flecked with caramel, reminded me of top-of-the-line granite kitchen counters." (We had some small spats over how to describe Barbara because she does not see herself as beautiful). But, here are the names of actresses who friends and colleagues think of when casting Barbara's character: Charlize Theron, Julia...[read on]

Learn more about Busted at the official website.

The Page 99 Test: Busted.

My Book, The Movie: Busted.

--Marshal Zeringue