Scandal in Babylon

July 1, 2021
An educated British woman's work at a Tinseltown studio is exhilarating, exasperating, and dangerous. In a major departure from her 19th-century tales of freed Black man Benjamin January, including House of the Patriarch (2021), Hambly introduces a world of glamour and deceit. After losing her husband to World War I and her family to the Spanish flu, Emma Blackstone has been rescued from a soul-sucking job as a paid companion by her sister-in-law, Kitty Flint, better known as Hollywood starlet Camille de la Rose. Emma keeps Kitty's household going, cares for three beloved Pekingese, and rewrites scripts for Foremost Productions, whose studio chief is just one of Kitty's myriad lovers. Before she can join her aunt, who's written to say that she's returning to England from India, Emma must help Kitty by solving the murder of Rex Festraw, her not-quite-ex-husband. Rex showed up on set unexpectedly, and before Kitty even gets to meet with the man she married at 15, he's found dead in her dressing room, shot by her own gun. Asked for an alibi, Kitty claims to have been searching for one of her dogs, but Emma suspects that she was meeting a lover. The studio staff naturally spring into action to protect their star, and the corrupt police quickly release her, but the plot to frame Kitty, with several forged but incriminating death threats found with the body, imperils everyone around her until Emma and her love interest, cameraman Zal Rokatansky, can find the real killer. A sparkling series launch featuring Hollywood hijinks and a clever sleuth.

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Starred review from August 16, 2021
Set in 1924 Hollywood, this excellent series launch from Hambly (the Benjamin January series) introduces Emma Blackstone, a proper young English widow who’s thrust into a world of decadent movie moguls, PIs, bootleggers, and their varied hangers-on. Emma’s heart lies in classical archaeology, but after the death of her American soldier husband in the Great War, she faced a dreary penniless future in England as a paid companion. Emma’s rescued by her sister, Kitty Flint, a sultry Hollywood sex goddess, who hires her to keep the gossip columnists at bay. When Kitty’s unsavory first husband is found shot to death in her dressing room, Kitty becomes the prime suspect. Emma, though sorely tempted to take up her aunt’s offer of a home in Oxford, turns ladylike private eye to prove Kitty’s innocence. The lurid Hollywood backdrop, as reflected particularly in Kitty’s steamy roles in the movie Temptress of Babylon and the upcoming Hot Potato, contrasts nicely with Emma’s elegiac longing for her vanished world. This splendid romp is sure to win Hambly new fans. Agent: Frances Collin, Frances Collin Literary.

September 15, 2021
Hollywood, 1924. Emma Blackstone, recently widowed, has come from England to America to take a job as personal assistant to her late husband's sister, the famous and, according to Emma, spectacularly untalented movie star Kitty Flint. It's a comfortable job, and Emma comes to like Kitty very much. Then, after Kitty's ex-husband turns up dead in Kitty's home, and Kitty becomes a murder suspect, Emma is convinced her friend has been framed. This series-launcher from the author of the Benjamin January mysteries is thoroughly enjoyable. Hollywood in the 1920s is not exactly unexplored territory--you could build a small library devoted exclusively to novels set in this period--but Hambly makes the milieu feel, if not exactly new, then certainly fresh. Emma, too, feels fresh: not merely another flapper-era amateur sleuth, but rather a vibrant, intelligent woman with whom readers will enjoy spending time (a kind of American version of Phryne Fisher). If future Blackstone novels are as good as this one, Hambly could have another long-running series on her hands.

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October 22, 2021

Veteran fantasy and historical fiction author Hambly (Bride of the Rat God) ventures into the mystery realm with this first in a new series. It's 1924 and Emma Blackstone, a British widow, has been living in California and working for her former sister-in-law, the celebrated actress Kitty Flint for six months. The job is not what Emma had pictured herself doing, but Kitty is only trying to help Emma. When Kitty's ex-husband (or is he?) Rex Festraw turns up dead in her dressing room, with an incriminating note in his pocket, Kitty is suspect No. 1. But Emma does not believe her sister-in-law could have committed murder, so she sets out to prove Kitty's innocence and encounters bitter rivals, jealous boyfriends, and secret plots along the way. VERDICT Hambly's characters seem too modern for the 1920s setting, as if they've been transported from the 21st century, and the story is all style, with little to sink one's teeth into. Recommended for cozy mystery and Hambly fans and those who are interested in 1920s Hollywood.

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