-
Tinseltown
- Murder, Morphine, and Madness at the Dawn of Hollywood
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 15 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Arts & Entertainment, Entertainment & Performing Arts
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $24.47
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories
- Turner Classic Movies
- By: Carla Valderrama
- Narrated by: Carla Valderrama
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From former screen legends who have faded into obscurity to new revelations about the biggest movie stars, Valderrama unearths the most fascinating little-known tales from the birth of Hollywood through its Golden Age. The shocking fate of the world's first movie star. Clark Gable's secret love child. The film that nearly ended Paul Newman's career. A former child star who, at 93, reveals her #metoo story for the first time. Valderrama unfolds these stories, and many more, in a volume that is by turns riveting, maddening, hilarious, and shocking.
-
-
Hollywood Fun
- By Ernie D. Casciato on 01-06-21
By: Carla Valderrama
-
Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
-
-
The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
By: Jennifer Worth
-
How to Be a Movie Star
- Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood
- By: William J. Mann
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed biographer William Mann follows Elizabeth Taylor publicly as she makes her ascent at MGM, falls into (and out of) marriages, wins Oscars, fights studio feuds, and combats America's conservative values with her decidedly modern love affairs. But he also shines a light on Elizabeth's rich private life, revealing a love for her craft and a loyalty to the underdog that fueled her lifelong battle against the studio system.
-
-
A Specialized Biography
- By Troy on 06-18-14
By: William J. Mann
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
-
More than Just the Girls
- By Jane Mcdowell on 01-14-14
By: Denise Kiernan
-
The Royal Art of Poison
- Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
- By: Eleanor Herman
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.
-
-
More fun than poison should be!
- By Leslye Sinn on 01-21-19
By: Eleanor Herman
-
This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories
- Turner Classic Movies
- By: Carla Valderrama
- Narrated by: Carla Valderrama
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From former screen legends who have faded into obscurity to new revelations about the biggest movie stars, Valderrama unearths the most fascinating little-known tales from the birth of Hollywood through its Golden Age. The shocking fate of the world's first movie star. Clark Gable's secret love child. The film that nearly ended Paul Newman's career. A former child star who, at 93, reveals her #metoo story for the first time. Valderrama unfolds these stories, and many more, in a volume that is by turns riveting, maddening, hilarious, and shocking.
-
-
Hollywood Fun
- By Ernie D. Casciato on 01-06-21
By: Carla Valderrama
-
Call the Midwife
- A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
- By: Jennifer Worth
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 12 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums. The colorful characters she met while delivering babies all over London - from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lived to the woman with 24 children who couldn't speak English to the prostitutes and dockers of the city’s seedier side - illuminate a fascinating time in history.
-
-
The best book I've listened to this year
- By Richard on 06-12-13
By: Jennifer Worth
-
How to Be a Movie Star
- Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood
- By: William J. Mann
- Narrated by: Mark Boyett
- Length: 15 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed biographer William Mann follows Elizabeth Taylor publicly as she makes her ascent at MGM, falls into (and out of) marriages, wins Oscars, fights studio feuds, and combats America's conservative values with her decidedly modern love affairs. But he also shines a light on Elizabeth's rich private life, revealing a love for her craft and a loyalty to the underdog that fueled her lifelong battle against the studio system.
-
-
A Specialized Biography
- By Troy on 06-18-14
By: William J. Mann
-
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz
- The True Story of the Women Who Sewed to Survive
- By: Lucy Adlington
- Narrated by: Lucy Adlington
- Length: 12 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of the Holocaust, 25 young inmates of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp - mainly Jewish women and girls - were selected to design, cut, and sew beautiful fashions for elite Nazi women in a dedicated salon. It was work that they hoped would spare them from the gas chambers. This fashion workshop - called the Upper Tailoring Studio - was established by Hedwig Höss, the camp commandant’s wife, and patronized by the wives of SS guards and officers.
-
-
Not what I expected given description and preview
- By Kaeli Mathes on 09-24-21
By: Lucy Adlington
-
The Girls of Atomic City
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
- By: Denise Kiernan
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians - many of them young women from small towns across the South - were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains.
-
-
More than Just the Girls
- By Jane Mcdowell on 01-14-14
By: Denise Kiernan
-
The Royal Art of Poison
- Filthy Palaces, Fatal Cosmetics, Deadly Medicine, and Murder Most Foul
- By: Eleanor Herman
- Narrated by: Susie Berneis
- Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.
-
-
More fun than poison should be!
- By Leslye Sinn on 01-21-19
By: Eleanor Herman
-
The Hidden Lives of Tudor Women
- A Social History
- By: Elizabeth Norton
- Narrated by: Jennifer Dixon
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Tudor period conjures up images of queens and noblewomen in elaborate court dress, of palace intrigue and dramatic politics. But if you were a woman, it was also a time when death during childbirth was rife, when marriage was usually a legal contract, not a matter for love, and the education you could hope to receive was minimal at best. Yet the Tudor century was also dominated by powerful and dynamic women in a way that no era had been before.
-
-
Scattered
- By brooke stanton on 08-29-18
By: Elizabeth Norton
-
Wisecracker
- The Life and Times of William Haines, Hollywood’s First Openly Gay Star
- By: William J. Mann
- Narrated by: Bo Foxworth
- Length: 16 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1930, William Haines was Hollywood's #1 box-office draw - a talented, handsome, and wisecracking romantic lead. Off screen, however, protected by a careful collaboration between studio and press, he was openly gay with reporters and studio chiefs alike. Here is Haines's virtually unknown story - rich with detail, revelations, and scandal - about silent movies and talkies; his lover Jimmie Shields, and their fifty-year relationship.
-
-
Juicy, Thoughtful and One of a Kind!
- By Lucian Siedler on 01-06-15
By: William J. Mann
-
American Murder Houses
- A Coast-to-Coast Tour of the Most Notorious Houses of Homicide
- By: Steve Lehto
- Narrated by: Barry Press
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From a colonial manse in New England to a small-town home in Iowa to a Beverly Hills mansion, these residences have taken on a life of their own, gaining everything from local lore and gossip to national - and even global - infamy. Here, writer Steve Lehto recounts the stories behind the houses where Lizzie Borden supposedly gave her stepmother "40 whacks", where the real Amityville Horror was first unleashed by gunfire, and where the demented acts of the Manson Family horrified a nation.
-
-
Engaging and engrossing stories.
- By S. Winchester on 09-14-16
By: Steve Lehto
-
The Devil in the White City
- Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.
-
-
Impossible to stop listening
- By Michael on 05-26-12
By: Erik Larson
-
The Crime of the Century
- Richard Speck and the Murders That Shocked a Nation
- By: Dennis L. Breo, William J. Martin
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 18 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On July 14th, 1966, Richard Franklin Speck swept through a quiet Chicago townhouse like a summer tornado and stabbed, strangled, and killed eight young nurses in a violent sexual rampage. By morning, only one nurse, Corazon Amurao, had miraculously survived, and her scream of terror was heard around the world. As the eight bodies were carried out of the small building, the coroner, who had seen the carnage up close, told a gathering crowd: "It is the crime of the century!"
-
-
All Of Your Roomates Murdered . . .
- By POLLY POIZENDEM on 04-21-17
By: Dennis L. Breo, and others
-
Bette & Joan
- The Divine Feud
- By: Shaun Considine
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This joint biography of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford follows Hollywood's most epic rivalry throughout their careers. They only worked together once, in the classic spine-chiller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and their violent hatred of each other as rival sisters was no act. In real life they fought over as many men as they did film roles.
-
-
Old Hollywood Drama!
- By Amazon Customer on 04-06-17
By: Shaun Considine
-
The Castle on Sunset
- Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont
- By: Shawn Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Since 1929, Hollywood’s brightest stars have flocked to the Chateau Marmont as if it were a second home. An apartment building-turned-hotel, the Chateau has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: where director Nicholas Ray slept with his 16-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose; and Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months. Much of what has happened inside the Chateau’s walls has eluded the public eye - until now.
-
-
Was enjoying it until...
- By leigh on 04-22-20
By: Shawn Levy
-
Lincoln's Last Trial
- The Murder Case That Propelled Him to the Presidency
- By: Dan Abrams, David Fisher
- Narrated by: Adam Verner, Dan Abrams
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At the end of the summer of 1859, 22-year-old Peachy Quinn Harrison went on trial for murder in Springfield, Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, who had been involved in more than 3,000 cases - including more than 25 murder trials - during his two-decades-long career, was hired to defend him.
-
-
Great Courtroom Drama
- By Jean on 04-26-19
By: Dan Abrams, and others
-
Lucy and Desi
- The Legendary Love Story of Television's Most Famous Couple
- By: Warren G. Harris
- Narrated by: Jim Frangione
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After eight years on the air, Desi Arnaz did not love Lucy any more. On screen, they were dynamite, a comedy pairing more successful than any Hollywood had ever produced. But when the cameras stopped rolling, they fought, screamed and threatened each other more each season. Finally, an argument in Desi's production office turned violent. Lucy hurled a cocktail glass past his head, and Desi demanded a divorce. He moved out that night. After nearly 20 years, America's favorite couple was finished.
-
-
Fantastic!!
- By Sheila Hyland on 12-29-19
By: Warren G. Harris
-
Black Dahlia, Red Rose
- The Crime, Corruption, and Cover-Up of America's Greatest Unsolved Murder
- By: Piu Eatwell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The gruesome murder of hopeful starlet Elizabeth Short, in the noir-tinged Los Angeles of 1947, has a permanent place in American lore as one of the most inscrutable of true-crime mysteries. Now, Piu Eatwell - relentless legal sleuth and atmospheric stylist - cracks the case after 70 years. With recently unredacted FBI files, newly released sections of the LAPD files, and explosive new interviews, Eatwell has unprecedented access to primary evidence and a persuasive culprit.
-
-
One of the best true crime stories I’ve ever read.
- By Mar on 12-27-17
By: Piu Eatwell
-
In Cold Blood
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why we think it’s a great listen: It’s a story that most people know, told here in an unforgettable way – an audio masterpiece that rivals the best thrillers, thanks to Capote genre-defining words and Brick’s subtle but powerful characterizations. On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
-
-
Artistry in Audio
- By Kim on 02-02-15
By: Truman Capote
-
Naked in Death
- In Death, Book 1
- By: J. D. Robb
- Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Eve Dallas is a New York police lieutenant hunting for a ruthless killer. In over ten years on the force, she’s seen it all - and knows her survival depends on her instincts. And she’s going against every warning telling her not to get involved with Roarke, an Irish billionaire - and a suspect in Eve’s murder investigation.
-
-
"Bag of Chips" series
- By Wendy on 11-26-13
By: J. D. Robb
Publisher's Summary
The Day of the Locust meets The Devil in the White City and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in this juicy, untold Hollywood story: an addictive true account of ambition, scandal, intrigue, murder, and the creation of the modern film industry.
By 1920, the movies had suddenly become America's new favorite pastime and one of the nation's largest industries. Never before had a medium possessed such power to influence; yet Hollywood's glittering ascendancy was threatened by a string of headline-grabbing tragedies - including the murder of William Desmond Taylor, the popular president of the Motion Picture Directors Association, a legendary crime that has remained unsolved until now.
In a fiendishly involving narrative, best-selling Hollywood chronicler William J. Mann draws on a rich host of sources, including recently released FBI files, to uncover the story of the enigmatic Taylor and the diverse group of people who surrounded him - including three beautiful, ambitious actresses; a grasping stage mother; a devoted valet; and a gang of two-bit thugs, any of whom might have fired the fatal bullet. And overseeing this entire landscape of intrigue was Adolph Zukor, the brilliant and ruthless founder of Paramount Pictures, locked in a struggle for control of the industry and desperate to conceal the truth about the crime. Along the way, Mann brings to life Los Angeles in the Roaring Twenties: a sparkling yet schizophrenic town filled with party girls, drug dealers, religious zealots, newly minted legends, and starlets already past their prime - a dangerous place where the powerful could still run afoul of the desperate.
A true story recreated with the suspense of a novel, Tinseltown is the work of a storyteller at the peak of his powers - and the solution to a crime that has stumped detectives and historians for nearly a century.
More from the same
What listeners say about Tinseltown
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Steven
- 01-08-15
Everybody's a dreamer...
...and everybody's a star. So the Kinks song goes, so does this book. Excellent history of Hollywoodland and the movie business circa early 20s via a cross-section of the lives of a variety of movie folk, both high status and lowly. And there is a murder mystery to boot. The has-beens and never-weres-and-never-gonna-bes live, work, and walk among the elites and other successful players and this is the tension William Mann excellently illustrates. He makes great use of the vernacular of the times via the letters, diaries, newspapers and other contemporaneous sources. It's like reading/listening to "Day of the Locusts" by Nathaniel West. Highly recommend to fans of early Hollywood and early 20th century US history and for murder mystery buffs.
69 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Мартин
- 11-29-14
New info on an old case
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
Absolutely! It gives us a glimpse into a different era and how the heavy fisted hand of Hollywood controlled the are that is today Los Angeles, just as they did back then.
Who was your favorite character and why?
Probably Taylor himself. He remade himself and reinvented himself and was a success but who killed him will forever remain a mystery
Which character – as performed by Christopher Lane – was your favorite?
Mary Miles Minter
If you could give Tinseltown a new subtitle, what would it be?
"How little things change". Many of the things described in this book, drug abuse, abortions, suicides etc etc are still par for the course in Hollywood. Things change but stay the same.
Any additional comments?
No but it is a good book and if you are unfamiliar with the Taylor/Tanner case, it is an excellent story and one worth listening to.
50 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Flavius Krakdaddius
- 04-04-17
Murder at the Dawn of Hollywood
This was one of those books in which my interest never flagged. Although the murder mystery is entertaining, what I found most compelling about "Tinseltown" was how vividly it depicted the fledgling movie industry circa 1920. This is an era I knew nothing about, but Mann tells so many stories from the era (including the tragic story of "Fatty" Arbuckle among others) that I've come to have a better appreciation of the times. This book is full of scandal and skulduggery, but also with warm & decent characters. The final chapters detail the lives of many of the principle characters in the years following the scandal--I found this very satisfying.
15 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Wendy
- 02-08-15
Dreams and Desperation in Early Hollywood
Would you listen to Tinseltown again? Why?
Absolutely! What did I miss? Before Tinseltown I had no real knowledge of the Silent Film Era or it's stars. What a fascinating time. The book is detail filled with a glimpse inside the lives of of the earliest movie stars.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The sadness and desperation of a career that didn't quite reach the expected heights and the elderly years of a forgotten star. It's sobering to learn of the later lives of the early screen stars that could not or did not transition to talkies. If we aren't able to adept, progress passes us by and we are forgotten.
Any additional comments?
The book was not only about a real life murder mystery but to me also a cautionary tale about change and adaptability.
35 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Book Dad
- 12-28-14
Excellent on Hollywood history
If you are a devotee of Hollywood history, then you will appreciate this meticulously researched and engaging examination of the murder of director William Desmond Taylor and the era in which it took place.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Liz
- 02-26-18
Proof of truly bad behavior at the very beginning
What made the experience of listening to Tinseltown the most enjoyable?
The information in this book was fascinating and very sad. That such a place who creates such dreams can also be the origin of such nightmares makes me torn. Torn because I love movies, but the people who are involved with the, both then and now seem to pay an awful price.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
I would change nothing, truth is what it is and it needed to be said.
Which character – as performed by Christopher Lane – was your favorite?
I enjoyed his performance of all of them.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
When the actress whose mother was so desperate to keep her virginal subjected her to an abortion. It disgusted me that a mother could be so very greeded as to do that to her own daughter.
6 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- John M. ONeal
- 07-04-18
Perfection when it comes to story-telling!
The one downside to Tinseltown is that the writing, the narration, and the production values of this terrific audible production now set a new standard that few are likely to live up to. William J. Mann does a brilliant job of capturing Hollywood in the twenties by activating all five senses and thus bringing each and every player in this captivating story to life and thus unquestionable immortality. This real-life murder mystery has been explored numerous times in different forms of media, but Mann even manages to uncover yet another potential possibility in this yet to be solved mystery. Christopher Lane's narration is flawless, and he thus keeps you hanging on every word; of course, everyone depicted in this story has a motive for murder, and so it is not hard to hook the listener. This is a must-have masterpiece! Pure genius at its best!!
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jonathan I. Rosenblatt
- 06-16-17
Much ado
A book that should have been an article. Sometimes felt like I was watching (or hearing) grass grow.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jim
- 03-08-15
A Nasty Place . . . But Keep That Fact Quiet
I thoroughly enjoyed this book while being wary of its total accuracy. Some events—in the very first chapter, notching up Robert Herron's death as suicide for instance—have alternate explanations with evidence backing them up; Mr. Mann never acknowledges alternatives. In addition, the author "speaks" what his characters are thinking, and forefronts his own take on their personalities (albeit with historical justification). Truthfully, I didn't find such quirks a problem as long as I was aware of them. They made for a smooth, flowing narrative with few historical gaps or breaks, and a fun read. The book's originality is its in-depth description of William Desmond Taylor's murder as a blackmail shakedown gone wrong. As the narrative unwinds, Mann biographizes the presumed perpetrators recently come to light. I bought this book cheap for some reason but it deserves better than to lay on the bargain table. If not already acquainted with dog-eat-dog early Hollywood this serves as a good eye-opener. Mr. Mann catches the atmosphere of wide-spread vice and personal desperation masterfully. I say, buy it.
11 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michele D
- 02-24-18
Fantastic!
I absolutely could not put it down! This storyline gives you an insider's view of what times were like in the 1920s big screen era.
4 people found this helpful