DEATH UPON A STAR

The glitz of Hollywood’s golden age must make room for murder.

Evelyn Galloway has moved from New York to California for a dream job as a script consultant on Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rebecca. Her roommate, the lovely dancer Mary Truman, aka Marlena True, gives her plenty of tips on Hollywood life. Catching a quick bite at the studio cafe, Evelyn introduces herself to John Cunningham Margrave, an actor she much admires, and their conversation leads him to invite her to lunch the next day. When she arrives back at the commissary, Margrave isn’t there, but he’s arranged to have Evelyn’s lunch provided along with his regrets. On her way home from work, Evelyn notices some unusual activity at the housing complex where Margrave told her he lived. She’s rudely pushed aside by a veiled woman rushing to a limousine and gets no help from several people loitering nearby. The next day, the newspapers announce that Margrave is dead. Their stories make no sense to Evelyn. When she goes to the police to report what she saw, Det. Ziegler reveals that Margrave was shot. Beyond that, there are plenty of discrepancies among the stories of witnesses the police have interviewed, and the studio fixers have their hands full as they work to cover up the scandal. It gets worse when the tabloids report that Margrave was in relationships with both film star Madeleine Nabors and 19-year-old Alice Rose Anders, both of whom may have had cause to want him dead. Evelyn, Mary, and Antonio Hernandez, a new friend who works at the studio, refuse to believe it and set out to find the truth.

The presence of actual famous stars and studio heads adds glamour to a complex mystery.