Indigo: A Valentino Mystery (Valentino Mysteries)

If you are ever in need of a refresher on the great movies and screen personalities of Hollywood’s golden years, this book is for you. Valentino, a self-described “film detective,” is given a long lost film—Bleak Street—by a wealthy old man with a very murky history. The crime film was pulled before it ever reached a movie theater when the leading man, Van Oliver, disappeared without trace. That was sixty years ago; Valentino sets out to discover what happened to him. Someone, however, is determined to make sure the film never sees the light of day. Despite this promising premise, the rest of the plot is thin. The motives of those wanting to prevent a public showing of the film are flimsy, and the truth behind Van Oliver’s disappearance emerges fairly easily, with only a few surprises along the way. Rather than the mystery itself, the strengths of this book lie in the author’s extraordinary depth and breadth of knowledge about yesteryear’s Hollywood, his often exquisite choice of words and phrases, and the humor he delivers through his characters’ dialogue. Indigo will be an interesting read for movie buffs but only marginally so for mystery fans.