At the dawn of 1942, the dark days of Pearl Harbor still loom over Los Angeles. America is now at war, and posters warn home-front Hollywoodites that loose lips sink ships.
Wartime propaganda is the name of the game, and the studios are expected to conjure stories that galvanize the public for the war effort. Marcus Adler is an MGM screenwriter whose latest movie was stolen out from under his whiskey glass, and he’s determined it won’t happen again. He comes up with a sure-fire hit, but his chance to triumph is threatened by a vicious rumor: “Marcus Adler is a goddamned Commie.”
Gwendolyn Brick is the handiest gal with a needle this side of Edith Head. After losing her job at the Cocoanut Grove, she dreams of opening her own dress store. But banks don’t make loans to single girls. However, wartime in L.A. opens the door to an opportunity that will rake in the bucks. But will it be worth the trouble if it drags her back into the orbit of Bugsy Siegel?
At the outbreak of war, the Hollywood Reporter’s circulation starts to shrink like a food rations coupon book. Its lead columnist, Kathryn Massey, realizes she can no longer ignore the obvious: her boss, Billy Wilkerson, is gambling away his fortune—and her future. Could their very survival depend on a place nobody’s heard of called Las Vegas?
In the city of searchlights, suspicions can lurk behind every shadow.
"Searchlights and Shadows" is the fourth in Martin Turnbull’s series of historical novels set during Hollywood’s golden age.
Genre: FICTION / HistoricalThe first book in my series recently topped three different Amazon Top 100 lists.
https://martinturnbull.wordpress.com/2014/12/19/the-week-i-topped-three-different-amazon-top-100-lists/
CHAPTER 1
Gwendolyn Brick’s head throbbed like a son of a bitch, but she didn’t care. The traffic thundering along Sunset Boulevard was bordering on painfully loud and the midday sun shone so bright it hurt to open her eyes. But that didn’t bother her, either. All that mattered was her brother’s telegram. She clutched it in her hand as she waited for him on the sidewalk outside the Garden of Allah Hotel.
“I can’t sit here anymore!” she declared, springing to her feet, but it made her head throb even harder and left her breath jagged. She sat down again.
Kathryn Massey yawned. “Aren’t hangovers the worst?”
Gwendolyn had never been much of a drinker—which made her a rare bird at the Garden of Allah—until the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Her brother was stationed there and the navy had listed him missing in action. As the grim days that followed blurred into wretched weeks, Gwendolyn made up for lost time by downing whatever booze lay at hand. At the Garden, there was always something within reach: champagne, gin, punch, brandy, martinis, daiquiris, manhattans. She kept it up through a dismal New Year’s Eve, but Western Union brought her bender to a halt.
AM ALIVE BANGED UP BUT RECOVERING STOP MEET YOU GARDEN OF ALLAH SUNDAY NOON STOP
