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DEAL KILLER , THE by Jack Bludis Design Image, October 2002 238 pages $15.95 ISBN: 1891946188 Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

It's 1951 and the old Hollywood is breathing its last. Studios still have all their property, but television is beginning to look to the backlists for product. The majors will keep going for another 15 or 20 years, but the poverty row, B picture producers are seeing the end.

P.I. Brian Kane is called in to the office of Robert Regal Clarke, the king of B movies. Someone is blackmailing Hanna Mills, the love of his life, and Bobby wants Brian to find out who is behind it all. There's a western shooting on the studio back lot, so he goes to talk to Hanna. As with all movie production, Hanna spends most of her time just sitting around,s o they have time to talk a bit. A shootout between the hero and villain is about to be filmed, so they stop and watch. The two men face each other, pull their guns, and shoot....and the hero falls dead. Really shot dead. So now Brian has a couple of problems to solve for his $50 a day fee.

The search leads him back to just before WW II when Mills, the stars of the movie, and the director, leave Hungary for the United States. Someone in the "Hungarian Mafia" is trying to injure Hanna and Clarke, but the reason is unclear.

Bludis has morphed the story of one of the most glamourous of '40s movie stars, who also escaped from Central Europe before the war, and also made movies that could be considered pornographic, moved her to Hungary, added a few twists, and written a fascinating story in the noir tradition. Kane doesn't try to bed every woman he sees. He is happy with his relationship with a high priced prostitute. He doesn't smoke and drink as heavily as the classic noir PI, and he is sensitive to the repercussions of his actions. THE DEAL KILLER follows THE BIG SWITCH, but it can be read as a standalone. I was pleasantly surprised by this book.

Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, April 2003

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