As Crime Goes by — Diane K. Shah

Hollywood, 1947. It's a town of glittering stars and lavish excess, where actors are legends, studio heads are gods, and even crimes are larger than life. It's the perfect setting for Paris Chandler, an ex-deb with a nose for celebrity dirt and a job with Etta Rice, queen of the gossip columnists. But as rumors fly fast and furious, Paris will discover a disquieting thing: when private trysts and intimate passions go public, so does murder.

While Cary Grant and Ava Gardner are sharing an intimate booth at Chasen's and Jolt in' Joe DiMaggio is being wheeled into surgery, Paris Chandler is at her desk in the Society Department at The Los Angeles Examiner. Her boss, the flamboyant Etta Rice, is where she always is--out--and the day is off to its usual start ... until Mrs. Jack Secberg, wife of the famed movie director, walks in with a juicy tip. Only trouble is, the tip's a fraud, the shapely brunette's a fake, and the next time Paris sees her, she's in the Santa Monica morgue.

Now Paris has a crack at covering a real crime story... if she can unravel the mystery of the woman with a face but no name, a home but no friends. As the city reels from the shock of the Black Dahlia murder, Paris is whisked down a winding trail of broken hearts and busted dreams... of deception and danger ... and deeper still into the tarnished world of Hollywood illusion--and murder.