Indigo
A Valentino Mystery
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3.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Valentino uncovers a dark secret in Hollywood's classic noir era when a lost film pulls him into a web of mystery and murder.
Film detective Valentino is summoned to the estate of Ignacio Bozel to collect a prized donation to the university's movie library: Bleak Street, a film from the classic noir period, thought lost for more than sixty years.
Bleak Street was never released. Its star, Van Oliver, a gifted and charismatic actor with alleged ties to the mob, disappeared while the project was in post-production, presumably murdered by gangland rivals - another one of Hollywood's unsolved mysteries. Studio bosses elected to shelve the film rather than risk box-office failure. UCLA's PR Department is excited about the acquisition, but only if Valentino can find a way to sell it in the mainstream media by way of a sensational discovery to coincide with its release: "We want to know what happened to Oliver."
A simple quest for a few hundred yards of celluloid opens a portal into a place darker than night. As Valentino delves deeper into the mystery surrounding the lost film and its vanished star, he finds himself drawn into a sinister web of secrets, lies, and danger lurking behind the silver screen glamour of old Hollywood.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar finalist Estleman effortlessly melds film history with a whodunit in his gripping sixth mystery featuring UCLA movie archivist Valentino (after 2016's Brazen). Valentino is devoted to locating and acquiring "rare motion pictures so they can be preserved for future generations to see and appreciate." He gets a unique opportunity from Ignacio Bozal, a wealthy man with a shadowy past, who gives him the only known copy of Bleak Street, a never-released movie, in which an obscure actor named Van Oliver starred as a gangster based on Bugsy Siegel. Oliver disappeared and was believed to have been murdered, possibly by the mob, in 1959, before the picture could be released. The PR department at UCLA insists that Valentino try to shed light on Oliver's fate, to bolster the publicity for the planned screening of Bleak Street. Valentino sets out to see how much he can learn, decades later, about what actually happened from the few people left involved with the film, including a fellow actor who was the last person known to have seen Oliver alive. The solution to the cold case is both clever and surprising. Film noir buffs will be in heaven.
