What is Mary Miley reading?

Featured at Writers Read: Mary Miley, author of Silent Murders: A Roaring Twenties Mystery.

Her entry begins:

The books I read for fun are quite different from the ones I read for work-related research. During the day, I’m generally reading for work—not that that’s torture, mind you; I usually enjoy those books very much. But I’m also usually taking notes, so it feels like homework. After dinner, I like to go early to bed and read for pleasure, mostly historical novels. I probably average two books a week.

So, in the past month, my bedtime reading has included Endless Night, a book that a friend told me was her favorite Agatha Christie. I enjoy Christie’s books and found this one quite different from her usual Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot fare. Any comment I make will spoil the ending, so I won’t. After that, I read The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard, a gripping historical mystery set at the military academy at West Point, where I was born...[read on]

About Silent Murders, from the publisher:

Vaudeville actress Leah Randall took on her most daring role ever when she impersonated missing heiress Jessie Carr in order to claim Jessie’s inheritance in The Impersonator. Now that the dust has settled around that tumultuous time in her life, Leah has adopted Jessie’s name as her own and moved to Hollywood, where she's taken a modest but steady job in the silent film industry.

Jessie’s thrilled when Bruno Heilmann, a movie studio bigwig, invites her to a party. She’s even more delighted to run into a face from her past at that party. But the following day, Jessie learns that sometime in the wee hours of the morning both her old friend and Bruno Heilmann were brutally murdered. She’s devastated, but with her skill as an actress, access to the wardrobes and resources of a film studio, and a face not yet famous enough to be recognized, Jessie is uniquely positioned to dig into the circumstances surrounding these deaths. But will doing so put her own life directly in the path of a murderer?

With Silent Murders, MB/MWA First Crime Novel Competition winner Mary Miley has crafted another terrifically fun mystery, this time set in the dizzying, dazzling heart of jazz-age Hollywood.

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Miley's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Mary Miley (September 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Impersonator.

Writers Read: Mary Miley.

--Marshal Zeringue