Mary Miley’s fourth book in her Roaring Twenties mystery series, Murder in Disguise, is out this month. In this edition, a movie projectionist, Joe Petrovitch, is gunned down at work one day and though the theater was full of people, the murderer seemed to have “vanished into thin air.” The victim’s widow works at Pickford-Fairbanks Studio and asks our heroine, Jessie Beckett, to look into the murder because the police do not seem to be getting very far in their investigation. The great thing about a book series is the characters become old friends and you just enjoy visiting with them again and again to see where life has taken them. This does not pertain to just the main character but other familiar characters as well such as Carl Delaney, the Los Angeles police officer, as well as reappearances of Myrna Loy because this is 1920’s Hollywood after all. New characters such as “Freddie” and Adele Astaire, the real star in the family, makes things fun and fresh but lest it get too frivolous, Ms. Miley throws in some mobsters and a young girl who can’t hear or speak which brings the reader to understand that murder is a dark business indeed. As with all of Ms. Miley’s books, her descriptions of 1920’s life (in this case Technicolor technology or how to shoot an action scene in one of Douglas Fairbanks’ movies) are spot-on because she would not have it any other way. This book is enjoyable on so many levels. A perfect summer read!

Murder in Disguise

by Mary Miley

Murder in Disguise opens with a murder set in Hollywood in the golden theater/movie days of Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks. During the course of the murder investigation, we learn about movie production, vaudeville, prohibition, corrupt law enforcement, gangsters, and the plight of orphans and women workers.

Jessie Beckett, working as an assistant script girl, has a knack for noticing things that others don’t, a talent which she attributes to her vaudeville background. This ability enables her to solve crimes, and she solves this one with the help of one of the few honest cops in L.A., Detective Carl Delaney, who is interested in getting to know Jessie better.

Jessie comes from a difficult background, but wants to leave mistakes of the past behind. Will her boyfriend David stick with his promise to do the same? Can the murderer stop with one crime? How does Jessie relate to a deaf and dumb girl left with one of Jessie’s roommates? The action keeps the plot moving; the characters and setting maintain a high interest level. The time period is well researched and the author includes words such as “copacetic” from the period adding to the authenticity. She follows up the novel with an “Acknowledgments” section that adds notes about the era and several interesting YouTube links.

I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Severn House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

Category: Historical Fiction, Mystery

Notes: #4 in the Roaring Twenties Mystery Series, but good as a standalone

Publication: August 1, 2017—Severn House

Memorable Lines:

Rumors were passed around like Christmas candy and devoured with the same enthusiasm.

La Grande was one of the largest depots of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe line, a great cavern of a place where the footsteps and shouts of a thousand rushing people echoed from the polished floor to the ceiling before being drowned out by the snakelike hiss of steam and the earsplitting squeal of brakes as the monstrous engines pulled into their tracks.

“There’s always another job on the horizon,” my mother used to say. I looked up the street toward home. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see the horizon from where I stood.

This is such a fun, and easy to read series. Pure entertainment. The waning days of vaudeville, the beginning of motion pictures, prohibition, bootlegging, such interesting times. Jessie, herself is a spunky woman, with a moralistic sense of justice, an amateur detective who seems to find out information through her past vaudeville connections, that the olive cannot.

The series is lively so much going on behind the scenes, interspersed with interesting tidbits about vaudvillr acts, and historical happenings. Mob connections, medicinal alcohol and a murdered projectionist with past ties to Serbia, are all part of this one. Add to it challenges of a personal nature, and Jessie has her hands full. Somehow or another things get done, put together, often not in a straightforward manner. Curious too see where the next in series will have her land. Many changes for this intrepid Heroine.

ARC from Netgalley.

The fourth novel in Mary Maley’s 1920s mystery series is an enjoyable story, but nothing that truly moved me.
It is competingly written, with a strong, coherent plot comprised of two mysteries (a main one and a supporting one) and a personal thread centred on the main character, Jessie.

The main mystery is a solid story, but honestly there’s nothing remarkable about it. There was a supposed twist at the end, which I suspected from early on and I actually wondered how Jessie didn’t come to the same conclusion instead of insisting in her original idea. That’s a pity, but didn’t really ruined the rest of the mystery. The ending was interesting enough and a bit unconventional, which is good.

The supporting mystery was in my opinion a bit more clichéd. It also had a twist at the end, but I found this one to be more contrived. I have a feeling that this thread will spill on future novels.

What really disappointed me was Jessie’s personal thread. This is an overarching story that started in the first novel and is evolving as new stories come out. It involves Jessie in a romantic way, interwoven with historic elements about Prohibition that are less known to the general public. Should be interesting, no? Honestly, I could never get into it. It all sounded very distant and I didn’t feel like getting emotionally involved in, I’m not even sure why. Maybe it’s because this part of story feels pressed upon the mystery but it’s rather alien to it. It never clicked. I just know that every time Jessie lingered on this part of plot, I hitched to go back to the actual mystery.

But all in all is a story that will amuse the mystery lover and will please the historical reader.

This series is fabulous. Mary Miley ALWAYS delivers stellar historical mysteries. She manages to add in so many period details without ever bogging down the story. Little things - like how much it cost to have a telephone, sending telegrams, and stores having "ready to wear" sections.

Miley's main character Jessie is all-American street-wise sass, and she is the epitome of the independent woman. Raised on the Vaudeville Circuit and orphaned at an early age, Jessie has learned how to put on her stage face and tackle any challenge.
But after finally putting down some roots with a job that doesn’t travel, and finding someone she can trust and rely on in David, Jessie’s world is upended when David is arrested on a string of charges including suspicion of murder and fraud. Jessie finds herself returning to her past as she takes the stand in David’s defense.

For Jessie, the answer to any challenge can be found in Vaudeville rules. She approaches her testimony on David’s behalf as just another act, and carefully crafts her character to meet the task at hand. But it’s the role of a lifetime, as it may be David’s life that’s at stake. But just like Vaudeville, Jessie’s life is a juggling act – while playing her role as star witness, Jessie is also up to her not-so-everyday job of Girl Detective, solving the murder of a movie theater employee, a task that becomes bigger than she could have expected.

Being a lawyer myself, I thoroughly enjoyed the legal aspects of this book. I love seeing glimpses of the legal world of the Golden Age and how much things have changed. David’s attorney was the perfect stereotype – in a good way. Miley’s characters are always well-developed, and her plots perfectly paced. I highly recommend this series for any historical fiction fans, fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood, and anyone who loves a girl with grit.

How did I miss this series? This is the fourth entry and it's just my kind of book, a historical mystery with a strong female character. Set in the Roaring Twenties, Hollywood, Prohibition, movies and their stars, this book has added to my must be read list as I now need to read the previous three in the series. The history of Vaudeville and Hollywood alone are draws, the mystery of how the projectionist was murdered is a satisfying addition. A very well crafted mystery.

The freshness of Jessie Beckett’s narrative voice remains undimmed even after four books. In her latest excursion into amateur detection, set mostly in 1920s Hollywood, Jessie, assistant script girl at Pickford-Fairbanks Studios, investigates the murder of a film projectionist. A man in a red jacket had sprung into the Lyceum Theater’s projection booth during a Charlie Chaplin film and gunned down Joe Petrovitch, with his shocked assistant looking on. The killer then somehow vanished. The crime has the markings of a theatrical production, given the perpetrator’s showy clothing, but it could also have been a gangster hit. Joe’s widow, Barbara, one of Jessie’s work colleagues, knows of her crime-solving reputation and requests her help—and in a welcome surprise, a former acquaintance, LA police officer Carl Delaney, agrees to their partnership. Barbara knows little of Joe’s past, although he was an unpleasant bastard by all accounts, with a history leading back to pre-WWI Europe. Discovering connections sends Jessie around the city and back to her old haunts elsewhere in America.

Jessie’s love life gets put on hold, with her regular fella in legal trouble, which means some new plot directions. Although attracted to Jessie, Carl’s too much the gentleman to push his advantage. Life at Jessie’s boardinghouse also gets shaken up with the arrival of a roommate’s deaf younger cousin, a sullen girl whose quiet cleverness makes her a wonderful character. As a former vaudevillian, Jessie knows all about disguises, so she has ideas on how the killer concealed himself in plain sight. Strangely, she still misses one important clue. I suppose even talented sleuths have off-days. As always, the Roaring ‘20s atmosphere, from the exciting invention of Technicolor to efforts to curb bootlegging, is worth the price of admission. Because it reveals aspects of previous books’ storylines, though, best not to read this one first.

Jessie Beckett is working at the PickFair Studio in 1925 and is asked to investigate the death of Joe Petrovitch, the husband of a co-worker, bue to her success in previous murder investigations. But how could this killer, a man in a red coat, who fired three shots at Petrovitch leave a crowded theatre without being noticed.
Although this is the fourth in the series I didn't find it was necessary to read the previous books. I found the story entertaining and a good mystery, and some good rounded characters.

I always look forward to "seeing" Jessie again. She's such a likable character that I can't help wanting to know what's happening in her life. These books bring two of my favorite things together, or actually three: mystery, old Hollywood, and the roaring 20's. This time around, Jessie is asked to investigate the murder of a film projectionist--Joe Petrovitch. As always, names like Fairbanks, Pickford, Loy, Astaire.....they all make an appearance. So does Carl and David. Two possible love interests. She's with one but you know the other would like to be romantically linked to Jessie. The mystery in this installment was a strong one, better I think than the last book. It was somewhat more complicated for Jessie but she handles herself well. I continue to love these books and I'm looking forward to what happens next. Some new developments in Jessie's life should make things more interesting for her in the future.

**Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars

Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties series continues to provide a fascinating glimpse into the later years of the silent film era. In Murder in Disguise, Jessie tackles the murder of a movie projectionist. The man murdered is the spouse of a fellow employee at the Pickford-Fairbanks Studio, and his wife engages Jessie to solve the crime. Jessie works as a script girl for the studio during the day but continues to pursue her interest in solving mysteries on the side. Her search for the murderer sends Jessie on a surprising path that I thoroughly enjoyed. The story line was creative and original which made the book very enjoyable.

Miley’s characters are well-developed and highly entertaining, and numerous famous individuals from that era make appearances such as her roommate Myrna Loy (prior to her career taking off), Adele and Fred Astaire (whose mother changed their last name from Austerlitz to Astaire to sound more patriotic during the Great War), and Douglas Fairbanks. Miley also incorporates fascinating vaudeville trivia including that Helen Keller performed with her interpreter for a few years on a circuit and that Adele Astaire was more famous than her brother Fred during their lifetimes even though he is the only one remembered today. As a fan of 1920’s Hollywood, I particularly enjoyed Miley’s focus on silent filmmaking and the details regarding making early technicolor movies. The filming of Fairbanks’ movie The Black Pirate features prominently in the story, with stories about Fairbanks doing his own stunts, Pickford standing in for actress Billy Dove in a closing scene, and the techniques used to make that film. My next project is to track down that movie and watch it after reading about its creation.

While Miley didn’t focus much on the relevance of movie projectionists in this novel, the subject matter resonated with me because I recently watched The Dying of the Light, a documentary about the switch from film reels to digital films which has eliminated the need for movie projectionists. This is an intriguing subject that I knew very little about before watching the documentary and was excited to see the subject matter addressed again in Murder in Disguise.

I continue to absolutely love this series, and Murder in Disguise is a fabulous addition. Each book provides a detailed glimpse into Hollywood and the vaudeville circuit in the 1920’s, and I always learn so much with each Roaring Twenties book I read. I am already anxiously awaiting the next installment. My one hope for the next book is that Jessie will resolve her love life; I am much more partial to one of her love interests than the other and am rooting for him. Thanks to Severn House and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I also want to give a shout out to Mary Miley’s Roaring Twenties blog that every fan of the era should follow; it can be found on her author site: http://marymileytheobald.com.

Murder in Disguise captivates the reader in the same way that early Hollywood first enthralled its viewers. There is glamour, suspense and action, with a lead whose checkered past only adds to her attraction. I enjoy historical mysteries in general, but Murder in Disguise exceeded my expectations. It gives readers a taste of early Hollywood during prohibition, and has many a tantalizing reference to early stars such as Myrna Loy, Fred Astaire, and Douglas Fairbanks. Readers feel like studio insiders.


Jessie Beckett, former vaudeville performer, is a script girl with a talent for solving murders. Her help has proven invaluable to the police on several occasions ( though only a couple would admit to it). When a projectionist is murdered, the widow (another employee at PickFair) asks Jessie to look into it. The murderer, a man in a red coat with a bushy beard and glasses, disappeared in plain sight moments after the killing. Police are mystified. Meanwhile, Jessie’s beau has been targeted by the police. His drugstores with their legal alcohol are cutting into the business of bootleggers in control of the city, making him a threat. As Jessie investigates, she discovers more murders linked to the first - each with a killer who is skilled at vanishing. It will take all her skills and contacts to find the truth.


Hollywood in the 1920s is the perfect setting for a mystery. Times are changing. Women are becoming more independent - and Hollywood is at the forefront. When you add in a heroine with an interesting backstory and a wide range of contacts, you have the foundation for a winning series. Mary Miley’s novel feels authentic, especially the many famous personas being fictionalized. The plot was well done, and I particularly liked how communication across distances was depicted - so true to the time period. I was very impressed by Murder in Disguise and look forward to more books by Mary Riley.


5 / 5


I received a copy of Murder in Disguise from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.


--Crittermom