Blog Posts by David

"Murder Most Persuasive" by Tracy Kiely
Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, 293 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


Third time's a charm for mystery novelist Tracy Kiely.

Yes, her first two novels featuring 28-year-old Washington, D.C., resident Elizabeth Parker (a Jane Austen enthusiast and newspaper fact-checker) have been above-average entertainments (see the reviews on this blog).

Yet, with this third, the author has landed in her groove. She puts on her sassy pants and puts a humorous edge on the proceedings.

That's much easier said than done, if you've ever endured a book or a person that has tried mightily to be amusing and has failed just as mightily.

Surely, Jane Austen commented on that subject, as on so many others.

Kiely also does well by her plot, which begins with the funeral of Elizabeth's great-uncle, a successful built-his-own-biz businessman who has resided in one of those Georgian-style Georgetown manses complete with iron fence and fanlight over the front

"The Brink of Fame" by Irene Fleming
Minotaur, 248 pp., $26.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

It's 1914-- women are still almost a decade away from having the vote.

Nevertheless, Los Angeles already has a state-of-the-art electric-trolley-line system connecting it to the soon-to-be capital of film art (well, at least, commerce), Hollywood.

(Gee, whatever happened to that great trolley system???)

Emily Daggett, 30, wife of Melpomene Pictures chief Adam Weiss, finds herself on the dusty sidewalks of Flagstaff, Arizona, where her husband is allegedly scouting locations and seeking camels to appear in his latest production, a desert-set opus.

However, the Weisses aren't headed from Hollywood; they're headed toward it.

Their film company is headquartered in Fort Lee, New Jersey, but the movie industry is migrating from East Coast to West.

The weather's better, the sun shines brighter and most of the year, the orange groves perfume the air, and there's cheap real estate and lots

"Dandy Gilver and the Proper Treatment of Bloodstains"
by Catriona McPherson
Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, 291 pp., $23.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


When a historical novel reads as well as a keenly observed contemporary novel of the same period--

When its characters and dialogue are absolutely spot-on--

When the author's stylistics exhibit the hallmarks of a wordsmith--

And, when there are a Dalmatian and a spaniel in the mix--

Then, pour out the tea and serve up the ginger sponge and custard.

Scottish writer (the name's a bit of a giveaway, eh?) Catriona McPherson places her 40-year-old (give or take) private investigator, Dandy (Dandelion) Gilver in an Edinburgh manse during May 1926, her services having been requested by the young mistress, who fears for her life at the (strangling) hands of her wealthy husband.

Dandy's to pose as milady's lady's maid in order to obtain an insider's take on the situation.

This being a murder rmystery, you probably have a grasp on who's

"Judy: A Legendary Film Career"
by John Fricke
Running Press, 352 pp., $30 (deluxe coffee-table size, with hundreds of pictures)
Reviewed by David Marshall James


John Fricke has spent the past twenty-plus years standing the Judy Garland legend upright, with the accent where it ought to be--

On the artistry.

With each passing year, the power of that artistry gains further dimensions, as the realization becomes abundantly clearer that there will never be another performer with the depth of JG's talent, with the breadth of her abilities, and the extent of her accomplishments.

Fricke's third volume (the earlier ones are "Judy Garland: World's Greatest Entertainer," 1992, and "Judy Garland: A Portrait in Art and Anecdote," 2003) spotlighting JG is, as the title indicates, devoted to her film oeuvre.

Yet, that doesn't keep the author from providing basic biographical information as well as segments on her stage, radio, and recording careers.

In her heyday, at her home studio of

Lucille Ball, a frustrated movie star (once dubbed Technicolor Tessie for her trademark red tresses and bright blue eyes), took the infant medium of television in her arms and cooed, "Come to Momma."

Once a Hattie Carnegie model (Lucy never lost her innate glamour and clotheshorsiness, no matter how many pies and how much seltzer she took to the kisser) and Chesterfield (cigarette ad) Girl, Lucy trekked from New York to Hollywood to become a Goldwyn Girl, then moved over to RKO studio, where whe was groomed for stardom in such important films as "Stage Door" (1937), starring Ginger Rogers and Katharine Hepburn.

Rogers remained a friend; indeed, Lucy was coached by Ginger's formidable mother, Lela. Decades later, Lucy and Ginger danced together on an episode of "Here's Lucy."

As for Kate Hepburn-- well, Lucy did a withering impression of her.

As for Lucy's own mother-- Dede (Desiree) Ball-- she was her biggest fan, attending every filming of
"I Love Lucy." She often can be heard

"F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Short Autobiography"
edited by James L. W. West III
Scribner, 204 pp., $15 (paperback original)
Reviewed by David Marshall James

F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary career took off like a barnstorming biplane in 1920, with the publication of his novel "This Side of Paradise."

There would be three more novels, plus the unfinished "The Last Tycoon," before his death in 1940, at age 44.

If novels were for art, short stories were for bread and butter (and champagne and foie gras), and Fitzgerald commanded $3,000 to $6,000 for each, depending on the magazine or journal.

That, at a time when a decent-enough house could be had for $5,000, at least in Podunk, Indiana, to reference a fictitious Fitzgeraldian locale.

The author also received sizable sums for his nonfiction pieces, nineteen of them collected herein, and all of which demonstrate a plush talent for adaptation to the respective styles of, and appealing to the particular

"The Real Macaw" by Donna Andrews
Minotaur/Thomas Dunne, 309 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


All heck's busting loose in Meg Langslow's house, barn, and outbuildings.

Then, there's the llama pasture. The llamas are so mad they could spit.

And it ain't stoppin' there. Pretty soon, the heck's spreading throughout Caerphilly County, Virginia.

Government. Budgeting. Sound familiar?

Yet, it's Meg's Grandfather, Father, and brother Rob to the rescue, along with a group determined to save the occupants of the local animal shelter (furry, feathered, great, and small) before the poor creatures are put down for the sake of fiscal convenience.

Meg's barn may not be The Ark, but it'll float as a temp zoo.

However, the underfunded animal shelter is but the tip of Caerphilly's iceberg. The mayor of the county seat, the county manager, and two rival families in the county are pulling fiercely in a dire financial tug-of-war.

So dire, indeed, that one of the animal rescuers is

"Pampered to Death" by Laura Levine
Kensington, 228 pp., $22
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Jaine Austen never met a snack she didn't like, as long as it didn't originate in an organic garden.

Ditto her kitty, Prozac.

Trouble is, for both of them, they're entering calorie-counting hell, in the guise of an enticing spa-resort week at a northern California retreat, The Haven. As in "The Havenochocolate."

Jaine-- one vowel away from her homophonically famous namesake-- may be a writer, but she hasn't written anything that's been snatched up recently by Hollywood.

That is, if you don't count her local TV ads for L.A. plumbing emporia.

However, the quote-unquote vacation is not her splurge, but a well-meaning gift from her next-door neighbor, Lance, whose fanny Jaine saved in a previous murder mystery.

Nevertheless, she's ready to kill him when she discovers the tasteless gray entrees on her dinner plate at the spa.

Then, there are the predawn uphill nature hikes.

Sara Lee,