This tale of murder among the movie moguls of Beverly Hills is certainly serviceable as a fair-play mystery. That it's well written is no surprise since "E.V. Cunningham" is really "Spartacus" author Howard Fast. And it captures very well the sort of craziness we expect in Hollywood, from a casting couch "gangshag" to the final confrontation with the murderer in a shark costume. But what keeps the story from rising above its material is the thick vein of racism that runs through it, especially now, nearly fifty years after it was written. The Japanese who came to America have been thoroughly obscured by later Asian immigrants, except, perhaps in places like Little Tokyo in Los Angeles. The Japanese detective laments he is only a Nisei (second generation Japanese) when people comment upon his Asian background, and the pure Japanese (Issei) he meets never let him forget he is second class to them, even though he is a homicide detective and they are gardeners and servants. The Japanese who arrived prior to WW2 were very prejudiced against those not born in the Homeland, and that certainly carries over into the 1960s, the setting of the novel. Modern readers confronting prejudice they do not understand, among an ethnic group that has faded into the background, might not feel immersed into the story, but if they can either put that aside or read the story with a sense of history, they will discover a murder mystery that is entertaining and engaging.
Do You like book The Case Of The Angry Actress (1984)?
