Script for scandal

In 1939 Los Angeles, motion-picture costume designer Edith Head has a surprise for her friend Lillian Frost, who narrates this series, now in its third installment. It seems somebody is making a movie based on a real-life crime, and the filmmakers intend to portray Lillian's LAPD detective boyfriend, Gene Morrow, in a very unflattering light. Are the filmmakers playing fast and loose with the facts, or does the cop have some secrets he'd prefer stayed hidden? The second Frost/Head mystery, Dangerous to Know (2017), was an improvement over the first, Design for Dying (2016), and this one ups the ante again. Head, the real-life costume designer who would go on to become a legend in the film industry, has become a rounded human being, fully fleshed out, and not a collection of character traits. Frost, a fictional character, is likewise more genuine. And the story, concerning a bank robbery and the death of Morrow's partner, is genuinely gripping. Well done.--David Pitt Copyright 2020 Booklist

In Patrick's well-paced third 1930s Hollywood mystery (after 2017's Dangerous to Know), Oscar-winning costume designer Edith Head slips her friend Lillian Frost, social secretary to a starstruck millionaire, the script of a film based on a real bank robbery that was committed three years before. According to the script, the robbery was conceived by a police detective, whose partner was killed in pursuit of the thieves. The dirty cop is called Jim Morris, who may be based on Gene Morrow, Lillian's police officer gentleman friend who investigated the robbery. As press interest in the film heats up, rumors start flying about Gene's involvement. As Gene says, "All manner of strange things turn up in cases like this. The trick is focusing on the right ones." Fortunately for him, canny Lillian and keen-eyed Edith are prepared to investigate and clear Gene's name. Patrick skillfully stitches together bits of authentic Hollywood history and provides star turns for the likes of Bette Davis and Fred MacMurray in this exuberant tale of murder, revenge, and sartorial splendor. Agent: Lisa Gallagher, DeFiore & Co. (Jan.)

Three years after a 1936 bank robbery turned lethal, a Hollywood production based on the story fans fatal flames for costume designer Edith Head (Dangerous To Know, 2017, etc.), her buddy Lillian Frost, and several other less fortunate denizens of La La Land.Within two days after the $20,000 heist at the California Republic Bank, all three robbers were dead along with Detective Teddy Lomax, whose LAPD partner, Detective Gene Morrow, is Lillian's beau. So Lillian is understandably outraged when she realizes that the screenplay of Streetlight Story, the picture Paramount's making about the crime, fingers Gene as the inside man who set up the whole job and betrayed his partner. George Dolan, the former newspaperman who shares script credit, says that he was only brought on to lighten the dialogue and provide comic relief; the bones of the story were the work of ex-con burglar Clyde Fentress. Since Lillian, the social secretary to semiretired industrialist Addison Rice, doesn't even work for the studio, she can do nothing to keep the project, under the direction of Aaron Ludwig, ne Ludwig Aaronofsky, from moving forward. Someone else, however, seems to have more decisive plans to meddle with the production. In short order two hangers-on with a special stake in the storyhotel handyman Aloysius Conlin, an aspiring actor who did time with Clyde in Folsom, and Clyde's writing protge, Sylvia Wardare murdered. Producer Max Ramsey is undeterred: "All I needed was some gossip in the newspapers!" he announces jubilantly. But Lillian has to wonder what sort of Pandora's box she's opened in peering once more into the abyss of the California Republic job, till Edith, initially buried under all the subplots and cameos (Fred MacMurray! Ben Siegel! Billy Wilder!), uses her sharp eye for fashion to come up with a pleasingly unexpected solution.A meaty, densely packed presentation of Tinseltown riven by potentially murderous factions on the brink of World War II. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.