Script for Scandal

By Renee Patrick

Sleuthing duo Lillian Frost and Edith Head investigate a behind-the-scenes scandal in this delightful Golden Age of Hollywood mystery.

1939, Los Angeles. Lillian Frost is shocked when her friend, glamorous costume designer Edith Head, hands her the script to a new film that's about to start shooting. Streetlight Story is based on a true crime: the California Republic bank robbery of 1936. Lillian's beau, LAPD detective Gene Morrow, was one of the officers on the case; his partner, Teddy, was tragically shot dead.

It seems the scriptwriter has put Gene at the centre of a scandal, twisting fact with fiction - or has he? With Gene reluctant to talk about the case, the movie quickly becoming the hottest ticket in town, a suspicious death on the Paramount studio lot and the police reopening the investigation into Teddy's death, Lillian is determined to find answers. Can Lillian and Edith uncover the truth of what happened that fateful day and clear Gene's name?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Severn House Publishers
• Release date: Nov 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781448303496

Renee Patrick

Renee Patrick is the pseudonym for married authors Rosemarie and Vince Keenan. Rosemarie is a research administrator and a poet. Vince is a screenwriter and a journalist. Both native New Yorkers, they currently live in Seattle, Washington. They have written two previous books starring Lillian Frost and Edith Head, Design for Dying and Dangerous to Know. Script for Scandal is their first book for Severn House.

Reviews for Script for Scandal

[nadinec.keels · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It's 1939 in Hollywood, and costume designer Edith Head lets her friend, Lillian Frost, know about a script for an upcoming film. The story is based on a real-life bank robbery, and to Lillian's horror, the character based on her detective beau, Gene Morrow, is the crooked, murderous cop in all of it in Script for Scandal by authors Renee Patrick.So! It was a little strange diving into this third Lillian Frost & Edith Head mystery, written with British punctuation and spelling and no page breaks between chapters, after reading the first two novels with American English and chapter breaks. But those technical differences weren't as important as my interest in this continuing series and the story at hand.Like its predecessors, this novel has its share of real figures from Hollywood's Golden Age, the glamour of it all balanced with its seamier side, and Lillian's first-person narration has dry, clever irony throughout, which sometimes smooths into dry comedy.Now, it took me longer to get through this read than I'd anticipated. The unfolding of the plot was slow for me in places, my prior history with the main characters being what urged me to continue. Also, in connection with something I said in my review of Book Two ("...one of [Lillian's] love interests isn't compelling enough to make me see why he's still in the running for her"), I think it's now safe to say outright that I'm still not a fan of Gene as a beau for Lillian.Nevertheless, I enjoyed the twists as the mystery got down to the nitty-gritty, and I'm already ready for a Book Four of this series from the married duo of authors behind the pseudonym Renee Patrick.

[cathyskye · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I'm glad that mysteries set in the glamor days of Hollywood seem to be on the rise, and I'm particularly happy that there is a new Lillian Frost and Edith Head mystery by the writing team known as Renee Patrick. Script for Scandal is a rip-roaring banquet of a read that has a little something for everyone.There's a real feel for Hollywood in the late 1930s, with one character working to infiltrate local Nazi groups-- which could be a very dangerous thing to do. Readers learn about the (mis)behavior of some of the movie stars of the day, and laughs are provided when Lillian's boss gets a part as an extra on a film and then begins to worry himself into a tizzy about it. This leads to "acting lessons" from both Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, and I could actually hear both actresses' voices in my head as I read.There's a nice twisty mystery to solve in which Virginia Hill and Bugsy Siegel play parts, and if you like clothes, you're going to like Script for Scandal. Lillian and Edith play well against each other. Lillian is the more intuitive, emotional "detective" while Edith's eye for detail and her tendency toward observation means that she picks up on things that everyone else misses.Readers never know which stars they're going to run into in one of these books, and this is part of the series' charm. I really enjoy how the authors portray real historical figures. If you like excellent period detail, strong mysteries, and two strong, independent female leads, chances are excellent that you will enjoy this series. Hollywood is just the icing on the cake. Give it a try!

[vesper1931 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Los Angeles, 1939 Edith Head hands over a script of a new film, entiled Streetlight Story to her friend Lillian Frost. It tells the 'true' story of the California Republic bank robbery in 1936. A case Lillian's frend LAPD detective Gene Morrow and his partner Teddy Lomax were involved in. Which resulted in the dead of Lomax, and the $20,000 still missing, with the three robbers also dead. The script revealing that there was a mastermind behind the robbery who was a member of the police. But why has the D.A Burin Fitts decided to investigate Morrow. Can Lillian and Edith prove Gene's innocence.
An enjoyable and well-written historical mystery, with a likeable style of writing and cast of characters. Quite a slow paced story but which kept my interest.
A NetGalley Book