MURDER AT THE PALACE – Margaret Dumas

I really enjoyed this book.

Nora Paige loves old movies. When her movie-star husband dumps her for a co-star starlet Nora takes refuge in San Francisco where she takes over as the manager of a historic movie theater that shows old movies – just the kind that she likes most. Here she befriends a band of misfits – all who seem to share her love of old films. But in her very short time at The Palace movie theater she discovers some very questionable financials, the ghost of a 1930’s usherette, and a much more recent dead body. What did she get herself into and how will she survive?

Author Margaret Dumas has penned a clever, swiftly moving mystery that manages to incorporate a little historical fiction, the supernatural, and the Hollywood film world. What’s not to like?

We get a really good dose of mystery here that ties most of the various elements together nicely. Too often the mystery seems secondary to the gimmick of the series but that is not the case here. It took a little while for this mystery to develop because of the need to set up the characters and the situation.

While I don’t mind supernatural in my fiction – in fact, I often gravitate toward that sort of fiction – I’m not completely sold on the ghost of Trixie here. She’s interesting and she does contribute to the results of the mystery, but she isn’t really necessary and I wonder how she’ll be used in future Movie Palace Mysteries. I read another mystery series published by Henery Press which features a ghost, and it works quite well whereas this feels a little bit like an attempt to draw in an audience with the gimmick.

I really appreciated the little “must watch” movie reviews and all the allusions to classic films in the book and I did manage to add a movie or two to my own must watch list thanks to these.

Looking for a good book? Murder at the Palace by Margaret Dumas is a fun mystery and an excellent start to a new series.