The Jack LeVine Trilogy: The Big Kiss-Off of 1944, Hollywood and LeVine, and Tender Is LeVine (The Jack LeVine Mysteries)

Synopsis

Three witty noir classics featuring a Jewish PI in 1940s Hollywood—from one of the writers behind Blazing Saddles: &“Bergman has a flip, easy style&” (The New York Times). Stocky, sweaty, and bald, LeVine is a Jewish private detective who makes a living by being polite. But underneath his smile lies a bulldog. In The Big Kiss-off of 1944, fledgling actress Kerry Lane comes to Jack LeVine when a blackmailer demands a payoff to keep a series of stag films from her past out of the public eye. Lured by long legs and a roll of crisp twenties, LeVine takes Kerry&’s case. But before he can speak to the blackmailer, the crook turns up dead. As LeVine hunts for Kerry&’s old films, he finds that the heart of this case is even uglier than greed, lust, or murder. It&’s politics. In Hollywood and LeVine, screenwriter Walter Adrian seeks the advice of high school buddy Jack LeVine. Studio execs suspect that Adrian is a Communist, and they&’re lowballing his salary as a result. Though he insists he isn&’t a Red, Adrian has no way of proving it. LeVine is broke, and has no sympathy for his wealthy friend, but he agrees to fly west to investigate his old classmate&’s trouble. When he arrives, Adrian hangs dead from the gallows at the Western set on the Warners&’ backlot. Behind his friend&’s death, LeVine finds a shadowy Cold War conspiracy, and a city far darker than anything Hollywood puts on screen. In Tender Is LeVine, Jack LeVine is just emerging from a vicious funk after the 1948 death of his father. His first client is a German violinist, who visits LeVine out of concern for his maestro, Toscanini, the famous conductor of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. The maestro&’s memory is slipping, his conducting style has changed, and his eyesight is suddenly vastly improved. The violinist suspects that the conductor has disappeared and been replaced by a double. It&’s an outlandish suspicion, but LeVine takes the case. After all, somebody has to pay for his new office. Soon enough, LeVine finds out that organized crime is playing the tune . . .

Copyright:

2012

Book Details

Book Quality:

Publisher Quality

Book Size:

698 Pages

ISBN-13:

9781453276549

Publisher:

MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

Date of Addition:

10/16/23

Copyrighted By:

Andrew Bergman

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

Literature and Fiction, Mystery and Thrillers

Submitted By:

Bookshare Staff

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.