The Naming Game: The Company Files

by Gabriel Valjan

‘Better Dead than Red’ isn’t the byline to Charlie Loew’s latest movie.

Charlie Loew is an alleged Communist, a script doctor, and dead.

Divided loyalties are the norm, paranoia is healthy, and everyone has dirt on someone else in Tinseltown by day, and Babylon by night.

J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and the CIA aka the Company race to decipher the cryptic piece of paper found in the dead man’s pocket. Walker is sent undercover as a screenwriter into a major studio. His ‘colleague’ Leslie becomes the secretary to Dr. Phillip Ernest, the shrink to the stars, who might be doing more than mending fragile psyches. Chief Parker of the LAPD doesn’t like strangers in town, and the ruthless Roy Cohn will cut a deal with anyone who will play the naming game.

173 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 5, 2024

About the author

Gabriel Valjan is the author of The Company Files, and the Shane Cleary Mysteries with Level Best Books. He has been nominated for the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, and Silver Falchion awards. He received the 2021 Macavity Award for Best Short Story and the 2024 Shamus Award forBest Private Investigator. Gabriel is a member of the Historical Novel Society, ITW, MWA, and Sisters in Crime. He lives in Boston and answers to a tuxedo cat named Munchkin.