Murder on High
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
When a screenwriter is murdered, legendary-actress-turned-amateur-sleuth Charlotte Graham is forced to investigate the dark days of Hollywood’s Red Scare
The ridge is called the Knife Edge, and it’s as dangerous as the sharpest blade. Iris Richards hikes this trail every June, a death-defying trek to celebrate her sobriety and remind herself that, even at seventy-two, she’s not slowing down. Today, she’s uneasy, haunted by an encounter with a man she caught lurking at her campsite last night, but her footing is sure. Her hike is nearly finished when something stings her neck, and Iris tumbles into the clouds.
Decades earlier, Iris was a Hollywood screenwriter and confidante of the legendary starlet Charlotte Graham. Blacklisted during the McCarthy witch-hunt, Iris disappeared into obscurity—until she was sent toppling off the Knife Edge. Now, to avenge her old friend, Charlotte must confront the sinister secrets behind the Hollywood blacklist.
Fans of Stuart M. Kaminsky’s Hollywood mysteries will be entranced by Charlotte’s investigation into the dark side of cinema’s golden age. She’s hardly an ingénue, but Charlotte Graham sparkles with all the glamour of the silver screen.
Murder on High is the 6th book in the Charlotte Graham Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seventyish Charlotte Graham, actress, sometime sleuth and summer resident of Old Town, Maine, helps her friend, state police Lt. Howard Tracey, solve the murder of Iris Richards, shot by an arrow while climbing Mt. Katahdin. The victim was a crusty recovered alcoholic and Thoreau disciple who shared a house and wildflower nursery in Old Town with companion Jeanne Ouellette. Charlotte soon discovers that the dead woman was also Iris O'Connor, an Oscar-winning screenwriter of the '40s and '50s whose work had provided Charlotte with some of her best roles. While Tracey explores Iris's local connections, Charlotte flies to Hollywood, where a look back to the turbulent years of red-baiting and blacklisting uncovers events that changed Iris's life. As Charlotte reviews those years and her torrid affair with a blacklisted cowboy star, light shines on the present-day murder, sending the actress back to Maine to find the solution. Although well-plotted, the pace of the sixth Charlotte Graham mystery, following Murder at the Falls, is burdened by wordy prose, an oversized red herring and more Thoreauvian and mountaineering lore than many mystery readers may appreciate.
