Design for Dying: A Lillian Frost & Edith Head Novel

Lillian Frost is a department store sales girl in 1937 Hollywood. She long ago gave up on her acting dreams and is just surviving until she finds out what she wants to do. Then her old roommate, Ruby, gets murdered wearing a gown stolen from Paramount Pictures, the department of the famous Edith Head. They begin to work together to solve this mystery in Design for Dying.

I didn’t realize until I saw the back cover of this book that it was written by a husband and wife team. You couldn’t tell at all that two different people were writing this story. It very much came across as one mind. You can tell they really know their movies and Hollywood history. It was an interesting mystery, but what drew my attention more was the authors’ ability to draw you into that time period. From the way people talked, to how they dressed and what the setting was like, it felt like I was in an old movie getting to see things firsthand.

I don’t think the story is very plausible, with a salesgirl and a costume designer solving the mystery, but it still captured me and left me wanting to read more.