A Few Good Murders

by Cady Kalian

Overview

Maggie Mars is a struggling screenwriter whose big break is happening now. Her latest script is being filmed and Maggie's on the set. But Maggie thinks that the lead actress is playing her character all wrong and tells her. A screaming match ensues.

So when said actress is found dead with her head bashed in with her own Oscar, Maggie is viewed as a "person of interest". She tries to keep a low profile and cooperate with the police. Complicating things is the fact that one of the deputies on the case is a former lover of Joe Camanetti, the sometime/longtime love of Maggie's life.

And somewhere out there is a killer who thinks Maggie is just too clever for her own good.

Memo #312 to Maggie: Never write murder scenarios too good for a killer to pass up...



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Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466840409
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/30/2008
Series:	Maggie Mars Series , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
File size:	900 KB

About the Author

Cady Kalian is the pseudonym for two Hollywood icons: Irma Kalish, an award-winning television writer with more than three hundred scripts to her credit and a past vice president and board member of the Writers Guild of America, west, and Naomi Gurian, an attorney and former executive director of the Writer's Guild of America, west.

Cady Kalian is the pseudonym for two Hollywood icons: Irma Kalish, an award-winning television writer with more than three hundred scripts to her credit and a past vice president and board member of the Writers Guild of America, west, and Naomi Gurian, an attorney and former executive director of the Writer's Guild of America, west.

Editorial Reviews

The hyper-fab Maggie Mars discovers the dangers of screenwriting in Kalian's snazzy sequel to 2006's As Dead as It Gets. After tantrum-throwing diva Allegra Cort, the star of Maggie's new movie Murder Becomes Her, is bludgeoned to death with her own Oscar, the cops find Maggie's prints on it, making her a prime suspect. Baffling spirit messages from TV psychic Mitzi Elgin, who's Allegra's friend (and Maggie's dad's girlfriend), attempts on Maggie's life and another shocking murder keep Maggie on her toes as she delves into Allegra's past. Maggie is no relation to TV sleuth Veronica, but their similarities don't end at last names and hobbies: Maggie's sticky intermittent relationship with LAPD cop Joe Camenetti is highly reminiscent of Veronica's teen romantic angst. The Hollywood collaborators behind the Kalian signature, veteran TV/film writer/producer Irma Kalish and Naomi Gurian, former executive director of the Writer's Guild of America, West Coast branch, keep things moving at a clip entirely suitable for TV adaptation. Stay tuned! (Aug.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Publishers Weekly

Her second time around, Maggie Mars-journalist, screenwriter, "chick dick"-goes one on one with a Hollywood diva. At last they've gathered on the set to make Maggie Mars's movie. Murder Becomes Her has arrived complete with the cherished screen credit, "Written by Maggie Mars." As she's prepared to tell the world, they're "the most beautiful four words in the English language." But there's a Queen Bee in the ointment: bankable, bitchy Allegra Cort, who's playing Maggie's beloved protagonist, Mercedes Pell, while playing poor Maggie to a fare-thee-well. Relentlessly, maliciously, script change by script change, Maggie and her Mercedes are being whipped into manageable shape by a dominatrix who knows her business, and who couldn't care less about being universally detested. Little wonder, then, that someone soon seizes Oscar from Allegra's mantle and brains her with it. The cops like Maggie for the homicide. Her back to the wall, Maggie has little choice but to turn detective again. Never mind those hunks-the buff cop, the smart lawyer, the worshipful journalist-who've been circling Maggie's susceptible libido. In the chick dick's operating manual, solve precedes sex. If you think of Stephanie Plum as the paradigmatic cookie, Maggie (As Dead as it Gets, 2005) is strictly a cookie-cutter sleuth. Agent: Ellen Geiger/The Frances Goldin Literary Agency, Inc.

Kirkus Reviews