In the first of a wildly entertaining mystery series set amid the bright lights, big egos, and Botoxed brows of Hollywood, Cheryl Crane--daughter of legendary movie star Lana Turner--introduces a smart, hilarious, and utterly loveable heroine in realtor-turned-amateur sleuth, Nikki Harper. For Nikki Harper, realtor to the stars and daughter of 1950s screen goddess Victoria Bordeaux, Hollywood is home--an albeit dysfunctional home populated by a cast of crazies. While Nikki's no stranger to scandal, she's shocked to receive a hysterical phone call from her business partner, Jessica Martin, saying that seventies sitcom star Rex March has been found dead in Jessica's bed. More shocking is the fact that, as far as anyone knew, Rex was already dead. . . Six months ago, Rex was supposedly killed when his plane crashed in the Mojave Desert. Nikki and Jessica recently sold his mansion on behalf of his widow, Edith. Obviously, Jessica is being framed, but by whom? And why? And how can Rex be dead again? "Cheryl Crane has written a superb mystery: rich in milieu, deep in plot twists, constant in the exercise of suspense and surprise. This book is a veritable primer on why people read and love crime fiction."--James Ellroy "There's a good plot with a twist and some very clever Hollywood insider bits." --The Globe and Mail "Plot twists keep the pages turning." --Booklist

Top realtor to the stars, Nikki Harper is often privy to the kind of celebrity secrets the tabloids would kill to hear. It's a position that helps her shed light on the darker, deadlier side of Tinsel Town. Her mother, Victoria Bordeaux, is the star of the TV series Casa Capri, the same one rocked by the murder of Ryan Melton, the arm-candy husband of the show's co-star, Diara Elliott. The prime suspect is the last person to see Ryan alive: his dog walker Alison Sahira, coincidentally the sister of Nikki's own boyfriend. Nikki is sure Alison is innocent, but Alison is also harboring a dirty little secret that could derail the careers of a lot of A-listers. Sorting through a tangled web of lies and innuendo, Nikki is racing to find the truth--before she becomes the next target on Hollywood's deadliest new hit list. . . "Fun. . .Nikki shows her usual crime-solving flare." --Publishers Weekly

"An addictive read. Perfect for movie star fans." –Library Journal Cheryl Crane, daughter of movie icon Lana Turner, brings her Hollywood insider expertise to a star-studded mystery series featuring celebrity realtor-turned-sleuth Nikki Harper and her screen goddess mother, Victoria Bordeaux. . . When the body of a spoiled, violent, party-boy turns up in a dumpster behind her mother's mansion, Nikki feels duty-bound to get involved. Eddie Bernard may have been the son of one of the biggest TV producers of all time, but the list of people glad to see him gone could stretch from one of end of Bel Air to the other. And the one person Nikki's sure is innocent is also the prime suspect: Jorge Delgado, her childhood friend and the son of Victoria's housekeeper. While Victoria relishes the Tinseltown scandal, Nikki is soon submerged in a secret world of celebrity drug-dealing, dangerous cults, conniving stars, and, of all things, the Food Network. But as Nikki starts to close in on the truth, can she keep Jorge from facing the final curtain. . .while keeping herself out of a killer's spotlight? "Crane clearly has fun playing with established mystery tropes and upsetting expectations. Fans of entertaining light fiction are in for a treat." --Publishers Weekly "Who knows the back doors of Hollywood better than Crane? Not only does Crane know what the rich and famous want hidden, she's got a pretty good handle on the lengths they'd go to hide it." --RT Book Reviews

USA TODAY BESTSELLER "A wild ride beneath the glitz and glamour of 1950s Hollywood, proving once again that Casey Sherman is a master of the genre." —Ben Mezrich, New York Times bestselling author of Dumb Money, Bringing Down the House, and The Accidental Billionaires The dark story behind the bright lights of Tinseltown From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all—a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating mobster Johnny Stompanato, thug for the infamous west coast mob boss Mickey Cohen, her personal life became violent and unpredictable. Lana's teenage daughter, Cheryl, watched her beloved mother's life deteriorate as Stompanato's intense jealousy took over. Eventually, the physical and emotional abuse became too much to bear, and Lana attempted to break it off with Johnny—with disastrous consequences. The details of what happened that fateful night remain foggy, but it ended in a series of frantic phone calls and Stompanato dead on Lana's bedroom floor, with Cheryl claiming to have plunged a knife into his abdomen in an attempt to protect her mother. The subsequent murder trial made for the biggest headlines of the year, its drama eclipsing every Hollywood movie. New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman pulls back Tinseltown's velvet curtain to reveal the dark underbelly of celebrity, rife with toxic masculinity and casual violence against women, and tells the story of Lana Turner and her daughter, who finally stood up to the abuse that plagued their family for years. A Murder in Hollywood transports us back to the golden age of film and illuminates one of the 20th century's most notorious true crime tales.

Chase Dagger is a private detective with no past, a sometime fiancee, a scarlet macaw with a photographic memory, and a beautiful assistant with the ability to shapeshift. Dagger has a knack for attracting the most unusual cases. So when a client informs him he received a call from his wife, the detective isn't surprised to learn that the wife has been dead for five years.

What rules do you abide when you re already dead inside? My only worst fear is being forced out of this grave that I live in Back into the life that I hide A past that I reminisce it was always bad choices Bad choices Bad choices And now it's consequences Consequences Consequences Now I stand behind steel bars and barbed wire fences Facing a five year sentence I've been criminalized And given a label as unstable They ve taken my youth and given me but a second chance at bail As I stand before the judge he asks me "do you think this is proper justice?" But it's kinda hard to think about that when I'm staring at my mother through a wood and glass booth Twelve years old cuffed and shackled, her tears hit me like bullets I'm breathless Can hardly catch my breath to plead guilty But what innocence do I have left? Guilty is the verdict Pleading otherwise would just be reckless But never mind that my face says it all The judge knows I'm guilty It doesn't take 21 questions from the jury to detect this Live once die twice When you re already dead inside Living is just a sacrifice

Die Twice--two gripping Dennis Milne mysteries in one from Simon Kernick. The Murder Exchange When ex-mercenary Max Iversson agreed to provide security for nightclub owner Roy Fowler, he never expected a bloodbath. Three men have been shot, the briefcase Iversson was guarding is empty...and now he wants to know why. So begins a dangerous hunt for answers that will take him into direct conflict with Detective Sergeant John Gallan, who is investigating the mysterious death of one of Fowler's doormen, and toward a confrontation that neither is likely to escape unscathed. The Business of Dying Cynical and jaded, Detective Sergeant Dennis Milne earns money on the side by doing what he does best: punishing the bad guys. But this time he's been duped and instead of blowing away drug dealers, he kills three innocent men, setting off a war of morality that could leave him broken, or worse...dead.

A daring, deep investigation into ethnographic cinema that challenges standard ways of writing film history and breaks important new ground in understanding archives Bad Film Histories is a vital work that unsettles the authority of the archive. Katherine Groo daringly takes readers to the margins of the film record, addressing the undertheorization of film history and offering a rigorous corrective. Taking ethnographic cinema as a crucial case study, Groo challenges standard ways of thinking and writing about film history and questions widespread assumptions about what film artifacts are and what makes them meaningful. Rather than filling holes, Groo endeavors to understand the imprecisions and absences that define film history and its archives. Bad Film Histories draws on numerous works of ethnographic cinema, from Edward S. Curtis’s In the Land of the Head Hunters, to a Citroën-sponsored “croisière” across Africa, to the extensive archives of the Maison Lumière and the Musée Albert-Kahn, to dozens of expedition films from the 1910s and 1920s. The project is deeply grounded in poststructural approaches to history, and throughout Groo draws on these frameworks to offer innovative and accessible readings that explain ethnographic cinema’s destabilizing energies. As Groo describes, ethnographic works are mostly untitled, unauthored, seemingly infinite in number, and largely unrestored even in their digital afterlives. Her examination of ethnographic cinema provides necessary new thought for both film scholars and those who are thrilled by cinema’s boundless possibilities. In so doing, she boldly reexamines what early ethnographic cinema is and how these films produce meaning, challenging the foundations of film history and prevailing approaches to the archive.

A collection of classic essays by legendary sports journalist Mark Kram, Great Men Die Twice covers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, George Best, Cool Papa Bell, and other memorable subjects. Imagine Mad Men set not in the advertising world but at 1960s Sports Illustrated, a place where the finest sports staff of any generation was attended by an open bar and almost unlimited expense account. This was the world Mark Kram lived and wrote in, along with his peers including Frank Deford, Dan Jenkins and other major talents. A high school graduate with a gift for revealing the hearts of his subjects, Kram would become one of the greatest sports writers of all time, covering the famed rivalry between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Negro League baseball star Cool Papa Bell, doomed soccer legend George Best, Olympic gold medal sprinter Edwin Moses, and others. The New York Times obituary of Kram in June, 2002 saluted his work in SportsIllustrated by calling him one of its "most lyrical writers of the 1960s and 1970s." Great Men Die Twice selects his best work with a moving introduction by his son, Mark Kram Jr., the PEN/ESPN Award-winning author of Like Any Normal Day.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.