"The movie business is booming in 1935 when twenty-one-year-old Loretta Young meets thirty-four-year-old Clark Gable on the set of The Call of the Wild. Though he's already married, Gable falls for the stunning and vivacious young actress instantly. Far from the glittering lights of Hollywood, Sister Alda Ducci has been forced to leave her convent and begin a new journey that leads her to Loretta. Becoming Miss Young's secretary, the innocent and...

After a long period of 'resting', life is looking up for Charles Paris, who has been cast as the Ghost of Hamlet's Father and First Gravedigger in a new production of Hamlet. But rehearsals are fraught. Ophelia is played by Katrina Selsey, who won the role through a television talent show. Hamlet himself is also played by a reality TV contestant, Jared Root – and the two young stars have rather different views of celebrity and the theatre than the...

"From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: his debut novel. The story of the making of a colossal, star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film...and the humble comic book that inspired it. PART ONE of this story takes place in 1947. A troubled soldier, returning from the war, meets his talented five-year-old nephew, leaves an indelible impression, and then disappears for 23 years. Cut to 1970: The nephew, now drawing...

About to receive an award as Most Promising Newcomer, a rising young stage comedian sensationally drops dead on stage at the start of his act: as he picks up the mike, he is electrocuted. Faulty wiring seems to be the cause and a verdict of death by misadventure is returned at the inquest. But actor/detective Charles Paris was in the audience that night and when another member of the cast reveals that the comedian checked his equipment just before...

"In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is the latest in a long line of ruthless men. He's good with his gun and is drawn to trouble but he's also out of money and out of options. A drought has ravaged the town of Dorado, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children, and so when he hears about a train laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it -- with his younger brother Hugo in tow. But when the heist goes awry and Hugo is killed...

A theater murder mystery starring sleuth and actor Charles Paris. The events occur as Paris' troupe prepares to perform Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The appointment of a new director has split the troupe into warring camps, those who favor a classic presentation and those who want more spectacle.

Prim librarian Maureen Davenport lives for Christmas--and there's nothing more magical than Christmas on Willow Lake. Finally getting her chance to direct Avalon's annual holiday pageant, she's determined to make it truly spectacular. But it might just require one of those Christmas miracles she's always read about if her co-director-- recovering former child star Eddie Haven--has his way. Is he trying to sabotage the performance to spite her? Or...

"In the spring of 1853, private detective Laetitia Rodd receives a delicate request from a retired actor, whose days on the stage were ended by a theatre fire ten years before. His great friend, and the man he rescued from the fire, Thomas Transome, has decided to leave his wife, who now needs assistance in securing a worthy settlement. Though Mrs. Rodd is reluctant to get involved with the scandalous world of the theatre, she cannot turn away the...

Paris, 1911. Andre du Monde, director of a famous horror theater, has married a young girl from the country. As a child, Andre experienced something terrible. Now he can't be close to anyone except by frightening them.His wife is frightened too. Because Andre keeps telling her she's going to poison him...Alexander von Reisden, doctor to the mad and Andre's friend, seems to have outlived his own terrible past. He has a wife and a son, and work he loves....

To save his winery, independently wealthy actor and former PI Michael Spraggue investigates a Napa Valley slaying Shooting on location in Boston for a new film, Michael Spraggue has just tumbled down a flight of stairs when a call comes in from California. On the line is Kate Holloway, Michael's on-again-off-again lover and partner in a fledgling California winery. It's harvest time and their winemaker has disappeared. Right after Kate reported him...