One Extra Corpse (A Silver Screen historical mystery, 2)
Hollywood, 1924: it’s seven months since widowed English academic Emma Blackstone became assistant, secretary, dog brusher, and companion to her “beautiful… glittering and careless” actress sister-in-law, Kitty Flint. Emma receives a call from director, Ernst Zapolya, asking her to convey Kitty to his set. He has something urgent, un-Hollywood-related, to divulge to her. Ernst barely gets one word out before the studio chief demands his attention on set, and amidst the explosions and mayhem, he is shot dead. Kitty, meanwhile, finds herself holding an envelope full of cash that Ernst stuffed into her hands just before he left. Fingers point at his movie-star ex-wife, but the studio chief isn’t going to allow the press to drag her through the mud. Attention falls on an innocent young actress. Kitty is determined to clear the girl’s name, and discover why Ernst gave her all this cash.
This clever mystery speaks to aspects of early Hollywood, including its dangerous sets, lack of safety concerns (sharpshooters using real bullets?), cost overruns, Russian infiltration and communist propaganda. Kitty and Emma are tailed, attempts are made on their lives, and their house is broken into while the police dither about accusing the wrong person. Emma’s cameraman boyfriend studies Ernst’s battle footage for clues; the stunning, egg-fu-yung-and-spiked-coffee-devouring Kitty turns out to have much more between the ears than her atrocious acting would suggest; and Emma is obsessed with script-rewrites from whimsical directors, requesting that first-century Briton slave girls become Parisian pre-WWII femme fatales―overnight. My one niggle is Hambly’s frequent overuse of hyphens and brackets within sentences, but with a great deal of ironic wit, her critique of Hollywood manages to turn the so-called razzle-dazzle into laughable mundane boredom. Emma’s scholarly commentary on script alterations is hilarious, and there’s a host of memorable characters, including Kitty’s three adorably irritating pekes.
