The Hollywood Detective by Martha Steinway

Published by Venatrix

Quirky and entertaining take on the hard-boiled detectives of the '40s

Kind of a cheeky, fun version of the old '40s-type detective stories. Certainly not noir, but it has its moments. This detective with the messy office finds that the secretary he thinks he has hired is much better at being an associate investigator. More than a match for our 'hero'. A missing girl is the focus, but what happens to her is not only a mystery but with a wild rampage going on in the city it becomes very difficult to get close enough to solve the case. The book has unique moments and I quite enjoyed it as such. A fast, lighter read but the ending is definitely scary and surprising. I'm quite interested to find out what these two get up to in the next installment.

Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures - a Novel by Emma Straub

Published by Riverhead Books

From a summer playhouse theatre on a Wisconsin farm to an award-winning star, this novel is an intoxicating blend of the siren's song of the stage and the dreams of a little girl. Encompassing the life of Elsa Emerson over a period of close to fifty years beginning in 1929, this piece is less to do with star-struck wannabees and drug-addled has-beens but more to do with love of family and love of acting as Elsa becomes Laura Lamont. Several tragedies play out that propel Laura to become what she has always dreamed of, an actress. She marries one of the young actors performing at the summer theatre her father directs, and runs away to Hollywood with him. But she is always haunted with the memory of her sister Hildy, a sister whose dream Laura often feels she is living.

Laura's depth of soul is what brings her to fame as she portrays her characters. The title of the book I felt refers to the very descriptive telling of the story...a story told in word pictures. An upsetting incident with her family when she wins the Oscar leaves Laura/Elsa split, grieving and feeling a sense of betrayal to her family, especially to the memory of her dead sister. Laura is not quite the usual film star. Family means every bit as much to her as her career. She loves her children, her husband and her Wisconsin family but her mother comes just short of disowning her. Laura owes a large percentage of her successful career to her second husband, the director of her movies, but this is a good, honest and loving relationship, no shoddy affair, and Irving treats Laura's two girls as his own. When Laura bears him a son, the family is complete.

Emma Straub has plumbed the depths of Hollywood, TV and stage scenarios. From black and white to full color and 3-D, this is the 'Golden Age of Hollywood.' She explores how the innards of Hollywood work, how the directors achieve the best they can out of their actors, and how the actors immerse themselves into their characters. There is glamour in the book, but more, there is true life with all its ups and downs, the good, the bad, the true actors and the ones on the fringes of acceptance. It is certainly not all joy and lightness, especially for Laura and Irving, because of his delicate health. This book is a roller-coaster of personalities, despair, deep emotions of all kinds. This character-driven story is probably a truer view of the world of acting and movies than most, because it gets right into the heart of that world.

KillRod: the Cross of Lorraine Murders by Bill Ison

Reviewed for Front Street Reviews
Originally posted Mar 31, 2008

I enjoyed the book KillRod: the Cross of Lorraine Murders. The style at first was reminiscent of Mary Higgins Clark, one of my favorite authors, in that we were shown flashbacks first of how the murderer came to be the way he was, and later getting into his mind through his own thought processes about the how and why of the murders. That said, Bill Ison has his own style of writing and flow and it held my attention from start to finish. I found it easier to follow along once I realized that each chapter heading told me where I was in time and place, so it made for a cohesive story all through.

His hero Hart St. James is a sculptor working in Hollywood doing sets. When Kelly Moran, a famous actress, asks him to come to her home no one is more surprised than he is. She wants to give her plain bedroom fireplace a more exciting look and asks him to work up some designs for her to go over. They spent a lot of time talking together over the next few days and learning how comfortable they feel with each other. With great shock after spending their only night together, he suddenly finds himself up to his unprotected neck in trouble as he tries to find a vicious killer and avenge the death of his newly discovered soul mate. He is sure that her death is political, that she must have inadvertently learned or heard something that put her in danger. Hart is a Special Forces veteran of the Viet Nam war and through his training and jungle time has developed a sixth sense of awareness and silent fighting that saves him several times. (I think a hard head did, too!) First a suspect in Kelly’s murder, somehow his skills have allowed him to work alone but with the police and FBI on the case.

His visit to Washington and his descriptions of the monuments and memorials there as seen through the eyes of a sculptor were wonderful. As beautiful as his descriptions of the seedy part of Chicago were sad and dreary.

Bill Ison has fascinating insight into how trauma can affect people differently, from the early beginnings of the killer to the early beginnings of Hart himself. Hart is pretty laid back except when his jungle tiger instinct kicks in. This book has excitement, action, strong characters, interesting locations, several twists, some humour, and some soul-searching as well. I enjoyed one chapter in particular about the “Big Seventeen”, very secretive and one more twist in this story. This is Bill Ison’s “first novel written specifically to be published”, and I certainly am looking forward to more of his writing. I recommend this book, it flows quickly and is easy to read for a thriller.