Dame Alice Hits Hollywood
Dame Alice Hits Hollywood:
A Cozy 1930s Mystery Featuring Author-Turned-Sleuth Dame Alice Cartwright
(Dame Alice Mysteries)
by Allie Mahoney
About Dame Alice Hits Hollywood
Cozy Mystery
1st in Series
Setting – Old Hollywood and Beverly Hills, circa 1937.
Wrenfield Books (May 23, 2023)
Digital Print length : 139 pages
ASIN : B0C666Z731
April 1937: When Penelope Greenleigh, assistant at Ten Spot Press, learns she’ll be heading to Hollywood to supervise script changes on the set of Lady Irwin’s Diamonds, she should be thrilled. Who wouldn’t want to mingle with movie stars in sunny California?
But there’s a catch: Penelope, 29 and from Cape May, New Jersey, has been asked to impersonate Dame Alice Cartwright, the world’s bestselling mystery author, who’s 47 and lives in Copley-on-the-Wold, England.
On the night Penelope arrives in L.A., Lady Irwin‘s lead actress disappears and a Harry Winston necklace goes missing. Soon, gossip columnist Hattie Holiday threatens to expose Penelope’s deception, mobsters are coming after the film’s boozy director, and worst of all, Dame Alice’s script has gone from murder mystery to Fred and Ginger-style musical!
The action unfolds at the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Trocadero, and hotspot Chasen’s as Penelope works to solve the crimes alongside a handsome detective and a hapless studio flunky. Can she find the diamonds, the actress, and survive a wild week in Hollywood?
About Allie Mahoney
A longtime magazine journalist, Allie Mahoney has written for Town & Country, Time Out New York, and Cosmo. A lifelong Agatha Christie fan, her shelves are also filled with the books of P.G. Wodehouse, Dave Barry, Sophie Kinsella, and Carl Hiaasen. Additional guilty pleasures: Classic Hollywood movies, fashion, dogs, Bravo tv, BritBox, Phillies baseball, and the beach.
Q&A With the Author
What did you enjoy most about writing this book?
Dame Alice Hits Hollywood is set in 1937 Los Angeles, and it was so much fun to place the action in Beverly Hills and movie studios in their glamorous heyday.
Penelope, the publishing assistant who’s been tasked with impersonating bestselling mystery author Dame Alice Cartwright, is sent to sunny California to oversee script changes on set at Farley Brothers Studios, and she’s suddenly surrounded by stars, glamour, diamonds and crime!
I was excited to pay tribute to one of my favorite Agatha Christie themes, which is the anonymity characters attain when they simply put on a uniform. Christie often includes scenes where a character is disguised as a butler (Three Act Tragedy), a secretary (Partners in Crime), or a chauffeur (Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?). In Christie’s Lord Edgware Dies, two actresses pull off a tricky switch that’s one of my favorites.
Do you have any other books you are working on that you can tell us about?
Definitely! Dame Alice has been invited by some very unpleasant millionaires to a house party on the French Riviera, and there’s sure to be a murder during her stay. Her sidekicks Penelope, Molly, and Toby the studio assistant will be there too. Crimes are inevitable wherever the Dame travels, and the casino in Monte Carlo, the Hotel Carlton in Cannes, and a mansion in Cap Ferrat are perfect settings for the Dame and Penelope to put their detective skills to work.
Can you tell us about what you have planned for the future?
In addition to future Dame Alice mysteries, I’m working on a light, fast-paced thriller about a female burglary ring in Palm Beach, Florida, who only steal when they really need to. Then, naturally, they find themselves at the scene of a much scarier crime.
How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing since the 1990s for Town & Country, Men’s Health, Time Out New York, Cosmopolitan, and Philadelphia Magazine. In addition, I authored a four-book mystery series for HarperCollins which is set on the Main Line of Philadelphia.
Anything more you would like to say to your readers and fans?
Thank you for reading Dame Alice Hits Hollywood. I wish everyone a wonderful summer filled with beach reads, cozy mysteries, and margaritas!
Visit Dame Alice Mysteries
Purchase Link – Amazon
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