First published 2013
Junior Bender thought his biggest problem was staying out of jail. Then Irwin Dressler's men drag him to a meeting with Hollywood's most feared mob boss turned movie mogul. At ninety three, Dressler still makes grown men tremble. He wants Junior to investigate a decades old crime against his friend Dolores La Marr, a starlet whose career died when compromising photos surfaced from a Las Vegas party seventy years ago. Junior thinks the case is hopeless. Anyone who destroyed Dolores back then is probably dead now. But nobody refuses Irwin Dressler and lives to tell about it. As Junior digs into old Hollywood secrets, he discovers that some grudges never fade. They just get deadlier with age.
Genres: fiction, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: reluctant-hero, secrets-from-the-past
Setting: Hollywood, Las Vegas
Period: 1940s, 1950s, 2010s
336 pages · Hardcover · Soho Crime