Shoot: the latest in Loren D. Estleman's Valentino mysteries!
Valentino,
a mild-manner film archivist at UCLA and sometime film detective, is at
the closing party for the Red Montana and Dixie Day museum when he is
approached by no less than his hero and man-of-the-hour Red Montana,
western film and television star.
Red tells Valentino that he is
being blackmailed over the existence of a blue film that his wife, now
known throughout the world as the wholesome Dixie Day and the other half
of the Montana/Day power couple, made early in her career. With Dixie
on her deathbed, Red is desperate to save her the embarrassment of the
promised scandal, and offers Valentino a deal-find the movie, and he can
have Red's lost film, Sixgun Sonata, that Red has been hiding away in his archives. Don't accept, and the priceless reel will go up in flames.
Feeling
blackmailed himself, Valentino agrees and begins to dig. In the surreal
world of Hollywood, what is on screen is rarely reality. As he races to
uncover the truth before time runs out, his heroes begin their fall
from grace. Valentino desperately wants to save Sixgun Sonata...but at what cost?