Silent Murders--A Mystery

July 21, 2014
Miley draws on the unsolved 1922 murder of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor for her absorbing follow-up to The Impersonator (2013). In 1925, former vaudevillian Jessie Beckett is working as a script girl when she receives a dream assignment: temporary assistant to swashbuckling legend Douglas Fairbanks. To her delight, director Bruno Heilmann invites her to a party at his home, where she has a chance encounter with an old family friend. Alas, the friend and Heilmann turn up dead, and two partygoers are poisoned. The authorities sniff suspiciously around Jessie and the shady David Carr after they discover drugs at Heilmann’s house. Jessie and a sharp cop suspect that more lies behind the murders, and Fairbanks is worried about the potential involvement of his alcoholic sister-in-law. Readers will enjoy the novel’s taut climax, cameos by famous and future stars, and a resourceful heroine who uses her acting skills in investigating and escaping from trouble. Agent: Natasha Kern, Natasha Kern Literary Agency.

September 15, 2014
What happens off camera is as dramatic as what's in the frame when serial murders intrude on Jazz Age Hollywood. Now that her recent masquerade as heiress (The Impersonator, 2013) has come to a disastrous end, vaudeville veteran Leah Randall is ready to adopt a new identity as Jessie Beckett, script girl in training and personal assistant to Douglas Fairbanks at the silent-film studio he and his wife, Mary Pickford, own and run. Jessie's tasks are limited to checking script continuity and running errands until a dinner party at the home of director Bruno Heilmann ends in the host's murder. Then her job description expands to include beating the police to the deceased's house so she can collect any evidence Mary's unstable sister, Lottie, left behind. Lottie had a secret affair with Bruno, and Fairbanks and Pickford dread the scandal that might result from the discovery. A more personal loss for Jessie is Esther Frankel, an unwilling witness who'd shared a stage with Jessie's late mother. But when Jessie comes for tea and the souvenirs Esther promised, she finds the older woman dead from a blow to the head. Working with a conscientious detective and a charming bootlegger she knew from her days of passing for an heiress, Jessie tries to figure out whether and how the two murders are related to two other Hollywood deaths. Accompanied by fresh-faced professional dancer Myrna Williams, who's trying on a new surname while she attempts to launch a Hollywood career, Jessie follows the trail of her chief suspect through an underworld connection and corruption that may reach high into the local hierarchy to a denouement featuring perhaps one Hollywood icon too many.A brisk, knowing adventure whose self-reliant but vulnerable heroine takes big risks for her Hollywood boss and stops just short of romance with two men who couldn't be more different. Only the sequel will tell which one she chooses and who she'll be next.

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September 1, 2014
Jessie Beckett, last seen in The Impersonator (2013), has kept the name she adopted in that story but moved to Hollywood to begin a career in the movie industry. Hollywood of the 1920s is full of silent movie stars contemplating what sound and color might do to their careers. It's also full of wild parties where liquor and drugs are easily available, despite Prohibition. Jessie has a position as a script girl at Pickfair Studios, where she works for Douglas Fairbanks. At a party in the home of director Bruno Heilmann, she encounters a woman who knew her actress mother. The next morning, after learning that someone has murdered Heilmann, she discovers the body of the woman who knew her mother. Fairbanks and his wife, Mary Pickford, are concerned that the crimes might bring scandal to their studio, so they ask Jessie to investigate. Jessie's adventures provide readers with a well-researched glimpse at life in Jazz Age Hollywood. Readers who enjoy Jacqueline Winspear and Carola Dunn will want to follow this series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)