Falling Star

by Henry Simpson

Talent Agent Sammy Glick has gone missing. Also missing is $7.6 million he placed in a dubious investment for June Shore, his ex-wife. Recently retired from her career as a singer and actress known as “Golden Girl,” June is on the verge of bankruptcy. Desperate to recover her loss, she hires Joe Costa to find Sammy and recover her missing money. Costa suspects that financial fraud, kidnapping, and murder might be involved in the case. In the course of his investigation, he crosses paths with a prominent attorney who seems to be losing his mind, a security guard obsessed with mafia romance and myth, a charismatic spiritual guru who leads a flock of benighted followers at a ranch commune, a wealthy and paranoid widow who totes an M1911 Colt 45 in her handbag, an attractive female CPA who is a cross between a schoolteacher and dominatrix, an obnoxious and foul-mouthed talent agent with many enemies and no discernible friends, a hash brownie-loving folksinger, and June, the Golden Girl herself.

211 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 4, 2021

About the author

Henry Simpson is the author of several popular murder mysteries featuring mobster lawyer Joe Costa (Death on the Strand, Golden Girl, Joe Costa’s Lonely Hearts, Joey Costa’s Law, Joey Costa’s New Game, Open House, Princess Lily, Some Kind of Genius) and Special Agent Ed Lane (A Splendid Little Murder, Island of Sprits, Finding Elysium) as well as short stories in literary magazines and anthologies. His fiction is character-based and usually has a plot involving greed, revenge, abuse of power, revenge, jealousy, flimflammery in arts or religion, the unsettled nature of reality, or achieving the American dream. He is married, lives in Monterey, California, and has two adult children and five grandchildren. Writers whose fiction he admires include Elmore Leonard, Patricia Highsmith, Truman Capote, Raymond Chandler, George V. Higgins, James Crumley, and James Dickey. His early influences were Boy Scouts, an urban high school, jazz musicians, surfers, street racers, juvenile delinquents, and a probation officer. At age eighteen, he joined the Marine Corps Reserve and began college. He studied engineering, did graduate work in English and Psychology, and holds a PhD from UCSB. He spent most of his professional career at small consulting companies as a military research psychologist, and worked independently as a software engineer, security consultant, real estate hack, and free lance writer while writing fiction on the side. He welcomes readers to his Facebook page or contact him at woodcrest400@yahoo.com.