Softcover

ISBN 10: 0982770944 ISBN 13: 9780982770948

Publisher: Theodosia Tramp Publishing, 2015

"I wanted a job. I got a murder." When makeup artist Toby Swanson joined the Fox Film Corporation in 1914, he hoped to sneak a kiss from the studio's newest star, the seductive vamp Theda Bara. But when a scene goes horribly wrong, Bara's film is cancelled and her dreams of stardom crushed. Unless. . . . . .she can prove what looked like an accident was really murder. So together, Theda and Toby dive into showbiz New York, from dancing with a young Rudolph Valentino to sharing the vaudeville stage with Sophie Tucker and learning lockpicking secrets from Harry Houdini, all leading to a long-forgotten church crypt holding a desperate secret. It's New York at the dawn of the twentieth century, a time of big bridges, big skyscrapers and big money. And it's a time when movies - the biggest new business of them all - joins hands with the oldest. The Director's Cut is the first of the Theda Bara Mysteries.

About the Author:

Christopher DiGrazia is a writer living in Haverhill, Massachusetts, only a stone's throw away from the site of the Orpheum, Louis B. Mayer's first movie theater. Formerly a contributing columnist to "Ripperologist" magazine and co-author of "The News From Whitechapel: Jack the Ripper in the 'Daily Telegraph,' he has lectured and written about silent films for the last ten years. He is currently at work on the second Theda Bara mystery, "Hollywood and Vain."