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Scott Elliott Mystery #1
Kill Me Again
August in L.A. is a miserable month no matter what year it is, but August 1947 was shaping up to be a singularly awful one. The House Un-American Activities Committee had come to town and was making everyone in Hollywood, the Technicolor heart of L.A., nervous. And all the moguls in town were twitching because Warner Bros. had decided to take its greatest wartime romance, Passage to Lisbon, and pull a sequel, Love Me Again, out of it.
Why were they twitching? Because this meant that the boys at Warner had a surefire hit on their hands. Warner wasn't so sure about that. They had received an anonymous note telling them that their screenwriter was a Red and with HUAC in town that meant trouble. So Warner did what any studio would do - they called in the Hollywood Security Agency to find out the real story and hush it up. Whatever it was.
The Hollywood Security Agency specialized in the discreet laundering of the studios' dirty linen, and nobody at the agency was better at that than Scott Elliott, their newest operative and a one-time Paramount contract player. Elliott had returned from the war to find that nobody needed his services as an actor and had drifted into security work as a way of staying in touch with the movie business he loved. But the long odds against saving Love Me Again get longer when the screenwriter turns up dead. To find his killer, Elliott must untangle lives twisted by Hollywood and the war with only a bloodstained copy of the script as his guide.
What he discovers is a trail of misplaced loyalties and secret dreams that reveals both the murderer and the mystery of his own future.
Why were they twitching? Because this meant that the boys at Warner had a surefire hit on their hands. Warner wasn't so sure about that. They had received an anonymous note telling them that their screenwriter was a Red and with HUAC in town that meant trouble. So Warner did what any studio would do - they called in the Hollywood Security Agency to find out the real story and hush it up. Whatever it was.
The Hollywood Security Agency specialized in the discreet laundering of the studios' dirty linen, and nobody at the agency was better at that than Scott Elliott, their newest operative and a one-time Paramount contract player. Elliott had returned from the war to find that nobody needed his services as an actor and had drifted into security work as a way of staying in touch with the movie business he loved. But the long odds against saving Love Me Again get longer when the screenwriter turns up dead. To find his killer, Elliott must untangle lives twisted by Hollywood and the war with only a bloodstained copy of the script as his guide.
What he discovers is a trail of misplaced loyalties and secret dreams that reveals both the murderer and the mystery of his own future.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1996
1 person is currently reading
52 people want to read
About the author
Terence Faherty
63 books37 followersTerence Faherty (1954-) is an American author of mystery novels.
My name is Terence Faherty. I'm a storyteller whose stories most often take the form of mysteries. (A critic once noted, cryptically but correctly, that all my stories are mysteries, even the ones that aren't.) I do see basic storytelling and mystery solving as linked, because in so many stories the protagonist is trying to answer a question or right a wrong. This is why I see the mystery and especially the private eye story as a particularly straightforward form of storytelling: a problem is posed and a hero sets out to resolve it. (At least, it would be straightforward if all clients were forthcoming and truthful.)
I've written two series in book form. The Owen Keane series follows the bumpy life of a failed seminarian turned amateur sleuth (a job title I love). It's been nominated twice for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award and once for the Anthony Award and it's won a Macavity Award from Mystery Readers International. The Scott Elliott series is set in old Hollywood during its decline and fall. Elliott, an operative for a shady security company, tries to slow that decline and fall in his own small way. Elliott has been nominated for three Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America and taken home two.
* Uncanny: Short story writen by Terence Faherty.
Series:
* Owen Keane Mystery
* Scott Elliott Mystery
My name is Terence Faherty. I'm a storyteller whose stories most often take the form of mysteries. (A critic once noted, cryptically but correctly, that all my stories are mysteries, even the ones that aren't.) I do see basic storytelling and mystery solving as linked, because in so many stories the protagonist is trying to answer a question or right a wrong. This is why I see the mystery and especially the private eye story as a particularly straightforward form of storytelling: a problem is posed and a hero sets out to resolve it. (At least, it would be straightforward if all clients were forthcoming and truthful.)
I've written two series in book form. The Owen Keane series follows the bumpy life of a failed seminarian turned amateur sleuth (a job title I love). It's been nominated twice for the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award and once for the Anthony Award and it's won a Macavity Award from Mystery Readers International. The Scott Elliott series is set in old Hollywood during its decline and fall. Elliott, an operative for a shady security company, tries to slow that decline and fall in his own small way. Elliott has been nominated for three Shamus Awards from the Private Eye Writers of America and taken home two.
* Uncanny: Short story writen by Terence Faherty.
Series:
* Owen Keane Mystery
* Scott Elliott Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
September 21, 2008
A mystery set in Hollywood in the late 1940s with the sequel to a "Casablanca"-like classic in the making. Scott Elliott, pre-war actor turned post-war gumshoe is hired to--what else?--save the day, and the remake. Terence Faherty is a master mystery writer, and his Scott Elliott series is especially rewarding for those who like Hollywood. He has a great sense of the time and the place. Really top notch.
March 27, 2011
This is the first book of my uncle's Scott Elliott series. While so far I like Owen Keane better than Scott Elliott, I won't judge him too early since I've lived with Owen Keane for years already. Set in post WWII Hollywood, this series has a totally different flavor to it. I enjoyed the story, it kept me guessing all the way through. My cousin Mike tells me the next book, "Come Back Dead," is a real doosey. Uncle Terry won a Shamus Award for that book. Can't wait! Also, my dad helped with the book cover art of this book. :)
July 26, 2011
Anyone who enjoys the American Movie Classics channel should be reading Faherty's Scott Elliott mysteries. Faherty's not recycling the "hard-boiled" cliches that drove so many B-movies, he's reworking them in a witty and evocative way. It's exciting to see Hollywood through Elliott's eyes.
November 7, 2015
Very different from the Owen Keane mysteries, but still quite fun, especially if you're a fan of old Hollywood.
Read
June 3, 2016This is book 1 in a series of 6 Scott Elliott Mystery books. I want to read them in order, but I am interested in the old Hollywood theme running throughout the summaries. Will let you know!
Want to read
April 25, 2019Synopsis: in Hollywood, a movie sequel started but faltered. Scott Elliott must untangle murder, secret sin and redemption.
August 15, 2019
Scott Elliott was an actor who went to war; now in 1947 he's back and works for a Hollywood security firm in the time of the HUAC committee and Commie hunting. Period dialogue - calling people "kid," "redcaps," "baby blues" - may be authentic, but I found it annoying; as were all the cute puns. Bert Kramer is writing a sequel to a wartime movie - or it is really someone else? Kramer receives a letter accusing him of being a communist and if word gets out, he'll be ruined. When he is killed, it's hard to track down the culprit among all the competing egos and the ability of the studios to make or break an actor's career. I also disliked the constant reference to characters' real or imagined war records, and the bloated writing - "Mediate finally demonstrated the quickness of foot that had kept him whole on D-Day" by coming up with an alibi when he needs it.
One character makes an observation that brings this story into the 21st century: the reason HUAC politicians are out to get the writers, the "idea men, [is because] they are the people who write the words that get shouted from movie screens into every unsuspecting melon in the country. That's the battleground of the coming fight, the space between your ears."
A good summary of the book for me was Elliott's description of his car, a Lasalle: "a little too flashy and out of date." Full disclosure: I'm neither a fan of movies or the HUAC period, so my opinion may not mean much!
One character makes an observation that brings this story into the 21st century: the reason HUAC politicians are out to get the writers, the "idea men, [is because] they are the people who write the words that get shouted from movie screens into every unsuspecting melon in the country. That's the battleground of the coming fight, the space between your ears."
A good summary of the book for me was Elliott's description of his car, a Lasalle: "a little too flashy and out of date." Full disclosure: I'm neither a fan of movies or the HUAC period, so my opinion may not mean much!
April 26, 2021
This book is set in Hollywood in the forties during the period when the House Un- American Activities Committee was taking an interest in investigating the members of the film industry who were suspected of being Communists. When the head of Warner Studios receives a letter accusing one of the writers of being a Red, Jack Warner has the Hollywood Security Agency investigate. When the writer in question is found murdered a short time later, clutching the script of his latest movie, the investigation leads in some very unexpected directions.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews