MURDER IN TINSELTOWN
by Max Nightingale
A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure whodunit set in the even more retro locale of 1958 Hollywood.
As she sits in the Royale Premiere Hotel awaiting the opening of the Golden Star Awards, Blanche Aikerman congratulates herself on having fought her way to the top. At the tender age of 27, she’s been offered, along with Peter von Hiltz, the director who’s guided her to fame and fortune, an exclusive lifetime joint contract for more money than they can count by Victor Ramsay of Thundersaga Pictures. Before she can say yea or nay, someone visits Blanche’s Royale Premiere suite and cuts her throat. The lead LAPD investigator is “you,” and you’re constantly asked to choose which lead to follow, whether or not to press a given suspect further, whether to follow or flout the law of the land, or even whether to respond to a crisis “quickly” or “immediately.” The consequences for a bad choice can be dire: More than a few dead ends lead to your boss, Capt. Barclay, taking you off the case, and even more of them end with your death at the hands of otherwise forgettable suspects who weren’t as trustworthy as they seemed. On the plus side, most of the fatal avenues are low-stakes because they’re mercifully short and because they make it easy to circle back to your last decision and try again. Jonathan Whitelaw, writing under the Nightingale byline, uses disconcertingly British tags like “lorry” to describe the traffic in 1958 Los Angeles, but it all turns out fine, except (oops!) when it doesn’t.
A player-friendly approach to the interactive crime novel best-suited to readers new to the game.