Today I'm reading Book 2 in the Golden Age of Hollywood mystery series Bye Bye Blackbird. It may be the second in the series but I found it easy to jump right in, maybe because so many of my favorite actors from the old black and movies keep popping up! There are some references to Book 1, Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles, but nothing too confusing.
More on Bye Bye Blackbird
In the summer of 1941, Hollywood heats up again when Humphrey Bogart arrives right after a female corpse with a dead bird stuffed inside her overcoat topples into the office of B. Norman Investigations. While filming The Maltese Falcon, Bogie found a mysterious ancient Egyptian hawk artifact on his doorstep containing a mummified black bird. Someone with dark intentions threatens the main cast, one by one, leaving dead birds, from crows to falcons, as their calling cards.
While more murders pile up, jeopardizing the film from being finished, Bogie hires private eyes Babs Norman and Guy Brandt, infuriating his volatile third wife, Mayo Methot, or Sluggy, as she’s known in some circles. Unraveling the personal lives of Mary Astor, John Huston, Sydney Greenstreet, Elisha Cook, Jr., Peter Lorre, and Jack L. Warner in their quirky, humorous way, the PIs turn the underbelly of Tinseltown upside down to stop the crazed killer from claiming another victim.
More on Elizabeth Crowens
Elizabeth Crowens is bi-coastal between Los Angeles and New York. For over thirty years, she has worn many hats in the entertainment industry, contributed stories to Black Belt, Black Gate, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazines, Hell’s Heart, and the Bram Stoker-nominated A New York State of Fright, and has a popular Caption Contest on Facebook.
Awards include: Leo B. Burstein Scholarship from the MWA-NY Chapter, New York Foundation of the Arts grant to publish the anthology New York: Give Me Your Best or Your Worst (no longer in print), Eric Hoffer Award, Glimmer Train Awards Honorable Mention, Killer Nashville Claymore Award Finalist, two Grand prize, six First prize, and multiple Finalist Chanticleer Awards. Crowens writes multi-genre alternate history and historical Hollywood mysteries.
Catch Up With Elizabeth Crowens:
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Thoughts on Bye Bye Blackbird
The fun back and forth between Private Investigators Babs and Guy (and their menagerie of furry and feathered friends) would make a book worth reading but throwing in surprise appearances by Hollywood royalty really ratcheted up the appeal. It was so much fun seeing my favorite movie stars shed their famous characters and just be themselves, plunged into the middle of a Hollywood mystery. You'll only truly appreciate this series if you have some knowledge of movie stars of the 30s and 40s and the history of the time. At the end, when the solution was revealed I could say "Oh, I get it" but I never would have unraveled this complicated set of circumstances.
Although I can't swear to the accuracy, it felt like the author portrayed the time period authentically. That said, she had to walk a tightrope between accuracy and modern sensibilities when writing about groups such as homosexuals (just lightly alluded to), Jewish people, Native Americans, Germans, and Japanese. At times I felt uncomfortable with one character's references to some groups, but then another character would appear with a more modern viewpoint. It was an interesting way of representing the historical viewpoint while also subtly saying, "Hey, this may have been how some people talked and felt, but it wasn't OK."
Although this was Book 2 of the series, I could easily jump right into the world of Babs and Guy with just a few references to Book 1. In fact, there were enough allusions to their first Hollywood mystery to make me want to read book 1: The Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles.
A Little Extra
Check out the Bye Bye Blackbird trailer HERE
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