Hollywood and Vain

Hollywood has a long memory.

Before he became a San Francisco private eye, Alexander Blade was Buster Blade, Wonder Boy of the Westerns-a child star of the silent screen. He thought he'd left Hollywood behind. Hollywood had other ideas.

It all starts when Blade finds a murdered cameraman in his office, a cash retainer clutched in the dead man's hand. Then other familiar faces from Blade's movie-making past begin turning up dead.

Someone is settling an old score, and the trail leads straight back to Monarch Studios, where young Buster Blade was a Hollywood sensation.

With his sharp-witted assistant, Paloma Liu Tsong, Blade follows clues through a California where yesterday's movie stars have become today's forgotten people-and somebody is making sure they stay that way.

Murder, movie stars, and dirty secrets from Hollywood's silent era.

Hollywood and Vain launches the four-book Frisco Detective Mysteries, a series of hard-boiled California crime novels in the tradition of the great paperback originals.