Director's Cut

Old Hollywood is on a crash course with the present when a 60-year-old film turns up in an eccentric ballerina's attic. The lost film is set to premiere at Maddie Pryce's theater in a matter of weeks in what the L.A. Times refers to as "the hottest ticket of the summer." But someone is disposing of people close to the movie and it doesn't give Maddie any comfort that she happens to live in the disgraced director's house, the same place he was found at the end of a noose in 1943. Someone doesn't want Otto Von Strasser's last picture made public, but why? Maddie dives into the secrets and the salacious past of the Golden Age of Hollywood hoping to discover the truth about Otto: was it suicide or murder? Meanwhile the night of the premier is growing ever-closer and the killer's willingness to do anything to stop it is obvious. If Maddie can solve the crime from the past, she might just be able to stop whatever the killer has planned for the big night.

If it wasn't for a steady supply of criminals, actress Maddie Pryce's razor-sharp wit might be West Hollywood's most dangerous weapon. Whether meeting up with junkie burglars or snide corporate theater owners, sadistic murderers or snarky homicide detectives, she manages to hold her own, often besting all comers. The situations are intense, the descriptions vivid, the action vibrant, and the twisting plots are always driven by headstrong, curious Maddie. Detective Kyle Oberman says, "An angry Maddie is like letting loose a bouncy ball in the housewares aisle." As Maddie moves impulsively, but usually deftly, through everything from vandalism to murder, she manages to keep her instincts honed, calling to bear something her mother noticed in her as a young child: "My mother used to tell the story of my first swim lesson, when I walked right past the instructor and the water-wings in her outstretched arms and jumped right in to the deep end of the pool. She called it the look-before-you-leap syndrome." That's Maddie . She'll have you on the edge of your seat while she comes up with the most resourceful way to extract herself from a killer, then have no concept of how to deal with a romantic entanglement. She'll draw beautiful pictures of Southern California, then uncover the dark underbelly of crime You may feel at times like you're in the great Golden Age of Hollywood until Maddie opens her mouth, then you know for sure where you are. Just one more way Maddie has of putting people in their place.