By Laura Lippman
The California dream weavers have invaded allure urban with their cameras, their stars, and their controversy. . . .
When deepest investigator Tess Monaghan actually runs into the workforce of the fledgling television sequence Mann of metal whereas sculling, she expects sharp phrases and evil appears, now not an task. however the corporation has been suffering from a sequence of traumatic incidents due to the fact its arrival on place in Baltimore: undesirable press, union threats, and small, high priced on-set "accidents" that experience wreaked havoc with its taking pictures agenda. consequently, Mann's writer, turn Tumulty, the son of a Hollywood legend, is anxious for the security of his younger lady lead, Selene Waites, and asks Tess to function her bodyguard/babysitter. Tumulty's problem could be good based. no longer some time past a Baltimore guy used to be found lifeless in his own residence, surrounded through photographs of the attractive, tough superstar-in-the-making.
In the previous, Tess has had adequate hassle guarding her personal physique. retaining a spoiled motion picture princess less than wraps can be greater than she will handle-even with assistance from Tess's icily unflappable good friend Whitney-since Selene isn't really as naive as all people turns out to imagine, and much extra devious than she at first seems to be. this isn't Tess's international. And those aren't her type of humans, with their vanities, their self-serving agendas and invented personas, and their remarkably skewed visions of reality-from the series' getting older, shallow, former pretty-boy major guy to its envious, always-on-the-make cowriter to the officious younger assistant who might be too hungry for her personal good.
But the fish-out-of-water P.I. is without notice pulled again in through an prevalence she's all too well-known with-murder. without notice the wall of secrets and techniques round Mann of metal is at risk of toppling, leaving shattered desires, careers, and lives scattered one of the ruins-a disaster that threatens the folks Tess cares approximately . . . and the town she loves.