A TWO REEL MURDER - A Maisy Malone Mystery: Starring Mabel Normand and Mack Sennett

Product Description “The great silent movies revolve around the body and the personality of its owner; the great sound comedies revolve about structure and style--what happens, how it happens, and the way those happenings are depicted. Film comedy, as well as film art in general, was born from delight in physical movement. The essence of early filmmaking was to take some object (animate or inanimate) and simply watch it move....”-->Gerald Mast (b. 1940), U.S. film historian, & educator.A TWO REEL MURDERLarry Names, prolific author of Sports histories, novels of the American West, and a gem involving the JFK Assassination, brings a new dimension to historical mysteries involving women sleuths. Maisy Malone and her best friend, actress Mabel Normand take on murders in and around Los Angeles County starting in 1912. Historical documents, real places, and people of the time, as well as the backdrop of the Hollywood film industry in its infancy, he gives his stories authenticity and charm.Comedy Vaudevillian Maisy Malone went to Hollywood in 1912, at the behest of Mack Sennett of Keystone Studios, to become a star in motion pictures. By chance she stumbled into a murder. Los Angeles Police Detective Ed Browning intended to write off the death of actor Leslie Clover as an accident until an outraged Maisy said she could prove the man was slain. To top that off, she bet him she could solve the homicide before he could, so the contest was on to catch a killer. Browning had a bunch of inexperienced, clumsy, bungling cops to help him, while Maisy had the aid of silent screen actress and comedy queen Mabel Normand. The detective and the actress went to the wire nose-to-nose in their race to solve the crime and needed a photo finish to determine the winner in this cozy murder mystery.“I very much liked the historical flavor that was brought to the story, both the period and the place were well drawn. Of course, that is what we expect from a Larry Names book. I was impressed with the level of detection that Maisy brings to the story. Most current mysteries are about the characters, the setting, and the action. What gets left out of that equation is unraveling clues. I can show you a dozen very successful books where the detective goes from place to place collecting clues only to have the villain reveal himself unexpectedly in the last chapter. Not so with Maisy Malone in A Two Reel Murder.”- Tom Colgan, Executive Editor, Penguin Putnam Publishing Group Review "I very much liked the historical flavor brought to the story, both period and place were well drawn. I was impressed with the level of detection that Maisy brings to the story. Most current mysteries are about characters, setting and action. I can show you a dozen very successful books where the detective goes from place to place collecting clues only to have the villain reveal himself unexpectedly in the last chapter. Not so with Maisy Malone in A Two Reel Murder." - Tom Colgan, Executive Editor, Penguin Putnam Publishing Group From the Author Growing up, I would hear my mother and aunts talk about their Aunt Sudie, my grand-aunt. Nearly all the stories they told had Aunt Sudie doing something daring or something outrageous or something hilarious. Aunt Sudie was the first to dive off a big rock into a river. Aunt Sudie took her daddy's horse and buggy for a ride without asking. Aunt Sudie caught a rattlesnake and chased a neighbor boy with it. Then she became a teenager and really got out of control. She hopped a freight train and rode it clear across Arkansas before the law caught her and sent her packing back to the farm. That was just the one time. The next time she made it to St. Louis where she had a bad experience with a fellow who wanted to make a "working girl" out of her. She returned home on her own after that little adventure. Aunt Sudie could whup any boy in Bryan County. In short, Aunt Sudie was a handful as the old folks would say. Today we woul