 His first book , Adrenaline , was published under the pseudonym James <unk> . A story of two gay fugitive lovers on the run , it <unk> the satire and drug fueled violence so prominent in his later books . Here Baker began developing the themes that dominated his following works : anarchy ; angry and somewhat paranoid gay men ; the dark underside of Los Angeles , juxtaposed with its sunny outward image ; the hypocrisy of organized religion ; anonymous sex and its implications in the age of AIDS ; and homophobia and the oppression of gays in a Republican dominated America . Its plot device of underdog characters forced into flight due to circumstances beyond their control was one Baker explored in all of his subsequent work . The modest success of this novel encouraged him to devote himself to what have become his best known works , Fuel @-@ Injected Dreams ( a novel revolving around a character loosely based on record producer Phil Spector ) and the 1986 release Boy Wonder . After the novel was published , he stopped screenwriting in order to solely concentrate on books . He spent the bulk of each day writing and researching , and acted out characters and scenes of his novels on videotape to perfect the dialogue . 
