The Mae West Murder Case

Jacob Singer #7

by George Baxt

The year is 1936, and Mae West has all of Hollywood wrapped around her little a place many a man would kill to be. The legendary screen siren has, however, one critic - one with deadly fangs in place of a poison pen - who is knocking off Mae West impersonators along his way to the real thing.
But if there's one thing Mae West knows, it's that no no-account vampire is going to upstage Tinseltown's most celebrated vamp. Brought back larger than life as only George Baxt can do it, Mae herself takes charge of the investigation in an adventure brimming with her doubles and her double entendres. This time she's hoping he won't have a gun in his pocket, and that he won't be glad to see her.
Armed with glamour, gossip, and curves of every kind, Mae leaps headlong into a web of blackmail and corruption without so much as a trace of fear. Says "You don't know danger until you've faced the New York critics on an opening night." And when a Hallowe'en party at one of Hollywood's spookiest, seamiest clubs brings hunter and hunted together, it's no longer clear who is after whom.
What is clear, however, is that once Mae West gets in on the act, no sucker is safe.

Genres: Mystery

196 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

George Baxt, the US playwright, scriptwriter and novelist, in New York City, USA.

He began his career as a radio announcer, an actors' agent, and television scriptwriter. He claimed that as an actors' agent he threw James Dean out of his office because he needed a bath. George Baxt's career developed into scriptwriting cult horror films. He made a contribution to The Abominable Dr Phibes, although it was uncredited. His first novel A Queer Kind of Death, (1966), introduced the detective Pharoah Love who was the first in the genre to be both black and openly gay. The novel was very well received and marked the start of a new career in writing. Two further Pharoah Love novels soon appeared and were widely regarded as superior to the first. Nearly three decades passed before the final outings of Pharoah Love in two novels.

Meanwhile George Baxt introduced the detective duo Sylvia Plotkin and Max van Larsen, but these were soon abandoned and several non-series novels were produced. Starting with The Dorothy Parker Murder Case, George Baxt then began to use his knowledge of Hollywood life by using celebrities as characters in a series of detective novels.

He died following complications after heart surgery.

Interesting obituary here: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obi...

Reviews

[Darlene Ferland · Rating 4 out of 5]

George Baxt's celebrity series takes the reader down memory lane. No matter whether you can remember from your own memories, from stories told to you by family members or because you are a nostalgia junkie, this Mae West book will entertain as well as inform you about the Hollywood of the 1930s. . .

[Denise · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't know this was a series book and read for the Mae West fact. It was truly just an ok book for me, seemed like a lot of details I didn't need.