Dangerous to know

The big problem with Design for Dying (2016), Patrick's first novel featuring the fictional Lillian Frost and the real-life Edith Head (the award-winning Hollywood costume designer) was a lack of screen time for Head. She felt like a supporting character in a novel in which she was supposed to be a star. In this second novel in the series, set in late 1938, Head has a lot more to do. Frost, social secretary to millionaire Addison Rice, is still the star of the story, but now Head feels like a real partner, helping Frost solve the mystery of a murdered composer (not to mention smuggling charges laid against two of Paramount Pictures' biggest stars). The authors Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for a husband-and-wife writing team flesh out Head's character considerably, the story is intricate and surprising, and the partnership between Head and her good friend Frost sets the stage for many further adventures. A major step up from the first book in the series.--Pitt, David Copyright 2017 Booklist

Set in December 1938, Patrick's sassy second series novel (after 2016's Design for Dying) takes the reader on an exhilarating ride through Hollywood in its heyday. Trouble may be brewing in Europe, but in Hollywood it seems to be business as usual. The biggest question in most people's minds is: who will David O. Selznick choose to star in Gone with the Wind? Lillian Frost, social secretary to one of the most prominent men in Los Angeles, is a friend of Paramount's premier costume designer, Edith Head. When Edith asks her to do a little favor for Marlene Dietrich, how can she refuse? Her brief is simple: find pianist Jens Lohse. The more she noses around, the more dangerous her life becomes. Real-life celebrities such as Billy Wilder, Dorothy Parker, Errol Flynn, Jack Benny, and George Burns populate this meticulously researched book, in which the most outlandish incidents are verifiably true. Lovers of old movies, fabulous gowns, and historical gossip will be enchanted. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

The closing days of 1938 bring a second case to failed actress-turned-shopgirl-turned-Hollywood social secretary Lillian Frost.Edith Head, just appointed head of Paramount's costume design department, must have spared no superlative in telling Marlene Dietrich about Lillian's earlier success (Design for Dying, 2016), because now Dietrich wants Lillian to find Jens Lohse, the pianist/composer who frequently accompanied the star, recently labeled box-office poison, before he disappeared, first from his rooming house, then from the face of the Earth. Lillian, not unduly impressed by her own sleuthing skills, nonetheless makes the rounds among Hollywood's expatriate community and mainly finds (aha!) that they're sharply divided about Adolf Hitlerso sharply that Rosa, the disgruntled German maid who disapproves of her employer Judge Edgar Lauer's highly critical remarks about the Fhrer, has blabbed enough to the cops to land the judge and his wife, along with comedians George Burns and Jack Benny, in hot water on smuggling charges. With all Tinseltown abuzz over this real-life scandal, Lillian's discovery of Jens' corpse rates little more than a footnote. Yet the more Lillian digs into the dead pianist's connections in the Hollywood community, the more convinced she becomes that Jens was hooked into some political skulduggery with serious implications for the war looming just over the horizon. A brightly written tale of how Hollywood simmered while Atlanta, or at least David Selznick's simulation of it, burned. Patrick not only provides walk-ons for Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, Hedy Lamarr, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn, Dorothy Parker, and Leni Riefenstahl, but actually furnishes something for most of them to do. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.