Do You like book And So To Murder (1993)?
I almost gave this three stars, as I liked it but there again I have given many better books three stars. It is very readable and the charcaters quite striking, the plot (fairly)plausible. Successful young writer Monika Stanton is invited to the famous studios of Albion Films to write the film script, not as it turns out of her novel, as she had expected, but of the whuddunit of a (horrors!) bearded man whom she detests before she even sees. A real life detective mystery develops as someone at the studios for an inexplicable reason seems to be set on destroying Monika or driving her away from the beginning of a promising career. Whom can she trust? This is an engorssing enough read, but like so much of the time in which it was written (the 1950's) is enthused with a heartiness I personally find irritating. However, it is a pleant enough way of passing the time on a long train journey or in the doctor's waiting room with enough suspense to kill unwanted time but with no unsettling profundity threatening to interfere with the normal course of one's life or cause sleepless nights.
—Esdaile
Oh, Mr. Carr, what have you done? if I had rated this book 4/5ths in I would have given it 5 stars unreservedly. it has everything I want in a non-supernatural/atmospheric Carr: interesting premise, fun dialogue, colorful characters, made all the better for its (seems to me, and tinged with a meta reflection on the book's genre-ness itself) B-Movie studio setting. On top of that, I thought it would be fun to see if Carr used the book to air out some of his personal frustrations with the film industry. But around 4/5ths of the way in, the story screeches to a halt and HM comes in and spends the last fifth explaining everything. There wasn't even ever a murder. Great start, poor ending.
—Berry