Why a Booktrail?
1939 : In Hollywood, no one is innocent
The Pictures
What you need to know before your trail
Jonathan Craine is a detective at the LAPD and he’s worked in and around Hollywood for years – well fixing and covering up crimes of the rich and famous, the very studio players who protect the billion-dollar industry that built the very city of Los Angeles. One of the producers of The Wizard of Oz has been found dead, and this time it’s no wicked witch responsible. There is a beautiful girl in the mix however – the deceased man’s widow – an actress who now needs protection
But Craine loses his heart and his brain when he gets involved with her. He’s going to need a lot more courage than any lion to get out of the conspiracy he now finds himself right in the middle of.
Locations
Reset- America/ USA - Hollywood
- A: CA - Los Angeles - Long wood
- B: CA - Los Angeles - Sunset Blvd
- C: CA - Los Angeles - MGM Studios
- D: CA - Los Angeles - City Hall
- E: CA - Los Angeles - Chateau Marmont
- F: CA - Los Angeles - Union Passenger Terminal
- G: CA - Los Angeles -Highland Ave
- H: CA - Los Angeles -Hollywood Sign
Travel Guide
Hollywood
The city of Los Angeles is in its heyday – the Golden greats of the industry such as Louis B Mayer, Groucho Marks, and a stream of actors and actresses, even the mob is in there. This is a city on the up – where cars and stars glide up and down the treelined boulevards. This city promises everything but delivers…well that depends. It’s a city of two contrasts:
“A gray and dusty Los Angeles reeled through the windows like a broke strip of celluloid. Although the motion picture industry had helped prop up Los Angeles in the lean years since the Wall Street Crash, visible shocks of depression were not in short supply”
“The slum receded, quickly forgotten to palm trees, flowering plants and the stucco-walled homes of the Hollywood middle class. This is a city of contradictions, Craine thought, a metropolis where sepia and Technicolour play side by side”
Streetview Maps
B) LA - Sunset Boulevard
C) LA - MGM Studios
D) LA - City Hall
E) LA - Chateau Marmont
Booktrailer Review
Susan: @thebooktrailer
This appealed from the get go. Hollywood Noir? The underbelly of the glitziest city in the world? Well yes, that sounded right up my street.
All the stars are there – Spencer Tracy, Katherine Hepburn to name but two.So it’s against this background that a detective whose wife was an actress who committed suicide. He has also helped criminal charges in Hollywood facing big stars ‘disappear’. He’s not the only one helping the glitz to shine through the dirt and dark dodgy streets. Craine, the detective is just another one of the unsavoury people who try to make things appear right – or at least right in the eyes of Hollywood.
What a dirty but fascinating world this turns out to be! Suicides, murders and links between the two soon come to the fore. Soon it becomes clear that Craine himself could soon be sucked into the whole affair.
The Golden Age of Hollywood? Well, yes, but one which is severely tarnished but then that’s what makes the novel so compelling. Which camera is on you? Does the camera ever lie? Appearances can be deceptive? Yup, all true here.Would you stand up for what is right even if your job, and even life depended on it?
A great debut novel. Shining a light looking out for novel number 2!
Booktrail Boarding Pass: The Pictures (Detective Craine 1)
Author/Guide: Guy Bolton Destination: Hollywood, Los Angeles Departure Time: 1939
Back to ResultsWhere Next?
