About this item

1920s script girl Jessie Beckett investigates the murder of a movie projectionist in this absorbing historical mystery. "Joe Petrovitch was gunned down on a sunny Saturday afternoon in early October, during the ninth reel of Charlie Chaplin's Gold Rush." Employed by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, Jessie Beckett has a busy time as Script Girl for Pickford-Fairbanks studios. Yet she also has a reputation as a skilled amateur sleuth. So when a projectionist is shot dead and his grieving widow asks Jessie if she can find out who killed him, Jessie is determined to find the killer and his motive. But who was the mysterious man in the red coat who fired three shots at Joe Petrovitch? And how could he enter and leave a crowded theatre without being noticed? To find the answers, Jessie must delve into the dead man's past and uncover dark secrets from another continent and another era.



About the Author

Mary Miley

I'm an Army brat who has lived in Virginia most of my adult life. I received my BA and MA in history from the College of William and Mary and taught American history and museum studies at Virginia Commonwealth University for thirteen years. I am the author of 200 magazine articles, most on history, travel, and business topics, and of a dozen nonfiction books. The Impersonator (2013) was my first foray into fiction (and it won the national Mystery Writers of America award for Best First Crime Novel) ; Silent Murders (2014) is a sequel. The third, Renting Silence, came out in 2016 and the fourth, Murder in Disguise, is due in August, 2017. I'm having a ball with the Roaring Twenties era and my characters, who are starting to seem like family! Meanwhile, I have a new gothic romance, Stolen Memories, available in paperback and as an ebook.

In first grade I took a shine to Show and Tell and have never stopped. Whenever I teach or lecture, I bring Stuff along with me, historical Stuff that helps paint a picture of my subject or era. For my Roaring Twenties mystery series, I've been collecting items that relate to both period and plot. So far I have a dozen vaudeville programs, two beaded flapper dresses that belonged to my grandmother, some period magazines and advertisements, a blown-glass fisherman's float, and most recently, a bottle of mercury bichloride (empty!) , the medicine/poison that figures in Silent Murders.

The Roaring Twenties is the most fascinating decade in American history and the perfect setting for a mystery series.



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