Star is Dead
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Hollywood diva Jessica Gray is on the last leg of her one-woman show when she suffers a sudden and fatal illness . . . but Angela Richman thinks there’s more to it.
“Ageless” Hollywood diva Jessica Gray is finishing the last leg of her one-woman show in St Louis, Missouri, and the nearby town of Chouteau Forest is dazzled. During the show she humiliates three homeless women onstage, fires her entourage – not for the first time – and makes a bitter enemy of the town’s powerful patriarch.
After she collapses at an after-show party and is rushed to the hospital, she ignores the advice of her doctors and discharges herself in order to return to LA. On the way to the airport she suffers a deadly coughing fit. It was poison. When Angela Richman’s friend, Mario, is arrested for the murder and faces the death penalty, she is compelled to investigate.
With so many grudges held against the actress and Mario’s life on the line, the stakes are higher than ever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Agatha finalist Viets's skillfully plotted fourth mystery featuring death investigator Angela Richman (after 2018's Ice Blonde), the burghers of Chouteau Forest, a posh community 30 miles from St. Louis, are agog at the prospect of meeting Jessica Gray, "a sixties beauty who'd starred in two classic films from that era, Flower Power and Eternally Groovy." Jessica, the peddler of her own kale-based beauty products, has agreed to attend a party at the mansion of a prominent Chouteau Forest resident after the final performance of her one-woman show. There Jessica slips seamlessly from charm to condescension, managing to offend an ever-widening circle of people. It's little wonder that she ends up dead. When Angela's friend Mario Garcia, who was Jessica's hairdresser during her stay in the area, is arrested for her murder, Angela steps up to help prove Mario's innocence. Witty dialogue and well-defined characters, including plucky and intelligent Angela, lift this wry look at the trappings of celebrity. Fans and newcomers alike will be pleased.
