The wrong girl

This is the first novel in a spin-off series from Casey's popular Alafair Tucker historical mysteries. It moves from the hardscrabble lives of settlers in WWI-era Oklahoma to the over-the-top glamour of Hollywood in the 1920s. The link between the two series is Blanche Tucker, eighth daughter of Alafair, who wants out of her stifling life in Boynton, Oklahoma, in the worst way. And Blanche gets out, in the worst way, when a handsome con artist and purveyor to brothels and Hollywood producers, seduces and then abandons her to a greasy pimp. How Blanche Tucker becomes Bianca LaBelle, a combination Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson daredevil enchantress, and how her early betrayer ends up as a skeleton buried in a hillside near Santa Monica, are the twin concerns here. Casey plays up the melodrama and delivers a silent-movie feel to the story, using black title cards at the start of each chapter and inter-titles to highlight the action in this Jazz Age mystery. While this is bubbly stuff, it also focuses on the way young women and men were preyed upon and discarded for the sexual use of Hollywood producers, with the press and police turning a blind eye to the abuse. Shocking and amusing by turns, The Wrong Girl starts a new series with great promise.--Connie Fletcher Copyright 2019 Booklist

Set mostly in Hollywood in 1926, this predictable series launch from Casey (the Alafair Tucker mysteries) introduces actor Bianca LaBelle, whose motion pictures about Bianca Dangereuse, "a Nelly Bly--type journalist and adventurer" are "the biggest money-making movie franchise in the entire Western world." Bianca feels threatened after a private detective visits her at her Beverly Hills mansion to inquire about Graham Peyton, who went missing in 1921 and whose remains surfaced a week earlier on a Santa Monica beach. Bianca knows too much about Graham, who lured her to Hollywood with promises of stardom in 1920 when she was 15-year-old Blanche Tucker living in Boynton, Okla., but then sold her to a pimp from whom she later escaped. Despite the plot points of con men preying on young women, sexual abuse, ruthless mobsters, and drugs, the danger is as nonmenacing as that in Bianca's Perils of Pauline--esque flicks. All that's missing from this melodrama is a mustache-twirling villain. Nevertheless, Casey's portrait of how stars were born and kept their status during Hollywood's silent era will intrigue film buffs. (Nov.)

Posing as a film producer, Graham Peyton persuades teenager Blanche Tucker to leave her family and run away with him. Through grit and determination, Blanche makes it to Hollywood where she becomes the reclusive star Bianca LaBell, and Peyton ends up dead. Is Blanche to blame? Set in the 1920s, this melodrama could just as easily be the story of a 21st-century teen determined to trade her everyday life for one as a Hollywood actress. Casey (Forty Dead Men) details Blanche's life beginning with her flight from her family's farm through her Hollywood success, as well as the death of the man who convinced her to run away in the first place. Despite a mild strain with male voices, Nordlinger's expressive, clear, nicely-paced speech and professional reading makes the tale come alive. Together, Casey and Nordlinger convey the silent screen era and 1920s ambiance in a charming mystery that is equally relevant to the modern world. VERDICT Will appeal to historical mystery buffs and those interested in the 1920s.--Laurie Selwyn, formerly with Grayson Cty. Law Lib., Sherman, TX