Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series.
Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the ready: it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. Copyediting a celeb gossip rag isn't the glossy entertainment journalism Rachel thought she would be doing but hey, it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway.
Rachel’s life changes overnight after meeting Molly Byrne, a former child star and current tabloid fave for her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends, and what begins as a chance encounter in a nightclub bathroom quickly grows into a genuine friendship.
When Molly is found dead, Hollywood accepts her death as an overdose. But Rachel knows for a fact her friend was clean—and she’s not alone in her suspicions that Molly was murdered.
With the help of a ragtag group of residents from her apartment building, a friendly paparazzo, and a handsome detective, Rachel must solve the mystery of Molly’s death before she’s written off for good.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The entertaining if overstuffed adult debut from YA author Mills (Something Close to Magic) follows a tabloid reporter who digs into the death of a disgraced former child actor in 2008 Los Angeles. Molly Byrne, the once-promising star of hit TV show A Is for Arnold, can't catch a break with the press, which seems hellbent on publishing unflattering coverage of the 24-year-old's every move. One night, Rachel West, a med school dropout and copy editor for Icon magazine, runs into Molly in a nightclub bathroom and the two become fast friends. When Molly's body is found in her Beverly Hills home a short time later, the public dismisses her demise as the inevitable overdose of yet another troubled starlet, but Rachel—who knew Molly had stopped using drugs—suspects foul play. As she evolves from gossip journalist to full-fledged investigator, Mills peppers the action with surprising reveals, but she stymies the momentum with a host of indistinct side characters whose personal dramas crowd the narrative. Still, readers in search of a winning dose of late-aughts nostalgia and an endearing heroine will find them here.
