"This thrillingly entertaining choose-your-own-story experience invites readers to sleuth their way to figuring out who murdered a Hollywood starlet during LA’s glamorous Golden Age."
Is it a gripping murder mystery? Is it a glorious whodunnit game to gift to the would-be sleuths in your life? Nope – Max Nightingale’s Murder in Tinseltown is all that and more, in that this choose-your-own-story also presents an intoxicating evocation of classic Golden Age Hollywood, classic methods of detection, and classic storytelling suspense.
The setting is Los Angeles, 1958. When one of the City of Angel’s most celebrated leading ladies is found murdered in her room ahead of a prestigious, glittering awards ceremony — the Golden Star awards — you’re invited to solve the case in the role of an LAPD homicide detective.
With stacks of suspects to check out, you get to choose which lines of inquiry to follow — just be mindful of red herrings, dead ends, and all that jazz along the way. If things don’t work out, you can always go back and start again (if you end up following a path to nowhere, you’re invited to do just that), but the real joy of this clever book is puzzling your way through misdirection and avoiding being thrown off the scent, while being entertained by a cast of exuberant characters.
Put simply, if you’re a fan of classic hard-boiled detective fiction, on-screen mysteries, and old school Hollywood glamour, you’ll adore losing yourself in Murder in Tinseltown, as will all grown-ups who loved “choose your own adventure” books as a child. May this be the first of many.
