This is Dandola's third 1940's mystery novel.
Dead by All Appearances, set during a War Bond tour plugging the original 1942 release of Holiday Inn, is the third Edie Koslow-Tony Del Plato mystery novel written by author/screenwriter/
The synopsis:
When Teddy Edison, youngest son of the late Thomas Alva Edison, asks Tony Del Plato to investigate some odd occurrences at the castle laboratory of millionaire inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr., it is a request more for Tony's much needed change of scenery than out of any real necessity. While leaving West Orange, New Jersey, might prove to be therapeutic following the recent events in Tony's life, little could anyone foresee that this forced vacation on the restful and beautifully rocky coastline of Massachusetts would ultimately involve local gangsters, murder, and espionage.
Adding to the confusion is a scheduled remote radio broadcast from the castle not to mention an unexpected rivalry between M.G.M. publicity girl Edie Koslow and Paramount actress Marjorie Reynolds, who is visiting after a War Bond tour in Boston to promote her new film, Holiday Inn.
Like Dandola’s previous two 1940's mystery novels, Dead at the Box Office (which was set against the backdrop of the Edison, the Man World Premiere) and Dead in Their Sights (which featured attempted Nazi sabotage on the Edison factory), this newest entry in the series continues to delve into Dandola’s family ties to Edison. His grandfather, like the protagonist of his novels, was a personal messenger boy to Thomas Edison during the 1910's and readers are now introduced to another Edison protégé, eccentric inventor John Hays Hammond, Jr., whose biography (Living in the Past, Looking to the Future) was written by Dandola in 2004.
“I couldn’t resist,” Dandola confesses. “I’m steeped in Hammond and he was someone who just cried out to be in a mystery novel. I may put him in another. His personality is perfect for it. As for Marjorie Reynolds, I’ve always been taken by her and I wanted to call attention to her beauty and talent. She made a handful of really good films but if she’s only remembered for Holiday Inn, that’s not a bad thing.”
Among the novel's inside view of Hollywood's Golden Age, characters actually discuss how careers were strategically planned by the studios and readers learn the true definition of B-movies -- something which is always explained incorrectly by today's media.
At 300 pages, Dead by All Appearances is published by Compass Point Mysteries, priced at $14.95, and available online exclusively at http://www.Biblio.com.
The author may be contacted through his web site, http://www.JohnDandola.com.
Compass Point Mysteries / The Quincannon Publishing Group
Contact: Holly Benedict
Editors@QuincannonGroup.com
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
