Turning his attention to novels, his first book, "Adrenaline", was published under the pseudonym James Dillinger. A story of two gay fugitive lovers on the run, it presaged 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.See Also: Levy, Dan. "Up-Front or Undercover?" "San Francisco Chronicle", June 20, 1993; Section: Sunday Review; Pg. 9</ref> 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.