The scattershot mystery is consistently upstaged by Hollywood gossip. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
As Hitler’s troops mass at the Polish border during Hollywood’s annus mirabilis of 1939, Paramount costume designer Edith Head and her amanuensis, Lillian Frost, are saddled with a much smaller mystery. At least it looks smaller.
Someone signing themselves Argus has been sending silent film star Marion Davies anonymous notes as cryptic as they are menacing. And not just Marion, best known these days as the mistress of newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst, but retired makeup artist Clarence Baird and his pinochle buddy, assistant director Rudi Vollmer. Having heard all about Edith and Lillian’s earlier sleuthing successes, Marion wants them to make Argus stop. In short order, the two women arrange to meet with Clarence and Rudi; Edith alertly identifies Clarence as Argus; and Clarence, presumably stricken by guilt, kills himself. Except his death isn’t really a suicide, as LAPD Detective Gene Morrow, Lillian’s former swain, indicates, and the notes from Argus don’t stop—they just switch from handwritten to typewritten. Clearly there’s more going on here, and Lillian suspects it’s connected to a spike in local interest in the work of Paolo Montsalvo, Mussolini’s favorite painter, and the reappearance of American-born Nazi Kaspar Biel, whose role as cultural attaché only hints at his involvement in deep-laid secrets. Among the many celebrity cameos—Orson Welles, Wally Westmore, Mitchell Leisen, Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray, Paulette Goddard, Charlie Chaplin—the most notable is the absence of Marion’s cousin Herman Mankiewicz, who fed Welles much of the insider material for Citizen Kane.Maybe Patrick is saving him for the next installment.
The scattershot mystery is consistently upstaged by Hollywood gossip. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.Pub Date: Feb. 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7278-8928-7
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Severn House
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.
A woman’s life takes a stunning turn and a wall comes tumbling down in this tense Cold War spy drama.
In Berlin in 1989, the wall is about to crumble, and Anne Simpson’s husband, Stefan Koehler, goes missing. She is a translator working with refugees from the communist bloc, and he is a piano tuner who travels around Europe with orchestras. Or so he claims. German intelligence service the BND and America’s CIA bring her in for questioning, wrongly thinking she’s protecting him. Soon she begins to learn more about Stefan, whom she had met in the Netherlands a few years ago. She realizes he’s a “gregarious musician with easy charm who collected friends like a beachcomber collects shells, keeping a few, discarding most.” Police find his wallet in a canal and his prized zither in nearby bushes but not his body. Has he been murdered? What’s going on? And why does the BND care? If Stefan is alive, he’s in deep trouble, because he’s believed to be working for the Stasi. She’s told “the dead have a way of showing up. It is only the living who hide.” And she’s quite believable when she wonders, “Can you grieve for someone who betrayed you?” Smart and observant, she notes that the reaction by one of her interrogators is “as false as his toupee. Obvious, uncalled for, and easily put on.” Lurking behind the scenes is the Matchmaker, who specializes in finding women—“American. Divorced. Unhappy,” and possibly having access to Western secrets—who will fall for one of his Romeos. Anne is the perfect fit. “The matchmaker turned love into tradecraft,” a CIA agent tells her. But espionage is an amoral business where duty trumps decency, and “deploring the morality of spies is like deploring violence in boxers.” It’s a sentiment John le Carré would have endorsed, but Anne may have the final word.
Intrigue, murder, and vengeance make for a darkly enjoyable read.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-64313-865-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Pegasus Crime
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2022
The lavish food descriptions and appended recipes are the best parts of this anemic mystery.
Christmas is coming, but so is trouble for South Lick, Indiana.
Robbie Jordan, owner and chief cook at Pans ’N Pancakes, returns from solving a murder in California just in time for the holiday rush, which is complicated more than most Christmastimes by a number of surprises that disrupt her circle of friends. First, her assistant, Danna Beedle, gets a visit from Marcus Vandemere, a young biracial man claiming to be her half brother, an assertion that thrills Danna despite the doubts of some friends and relatives. Next comes a fire that nearly destroys the home of anesthesiologist Dr. William Geller, a racist whose wife, Tina, reportedly left him years ago. When a skeleton turns up in the attic, the not-so-esteemed doctor has some explaining to do. Robbie’s nemesis, Detective Octavia Slade, who recently married Robbie’s former boyfriend, is more willing than usual to accept help from Robbie, who has a knack for finding things out. The next to die is Tina’s twin, Toni, who knew Marcus from karate classes. Toni’s husband is the prime suspect, but Robbie’s convinced the fatalities are connected. With help from her boyfriend and her network of friends, she attempts to clear things up before the killer spoils her holiday by adding her to his list.
The lavish food descriptions and appended recipes are the best parts of this anemic mystery.Pub Date: Sept. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4967-2317-8
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Kensington
Review Posted Online: June 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
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