Published by Forge Books on July 28, 2020

I don’t have enough fingers and toes to count all the books Loren D. Estleman has written. Indigo is the sixth novel in his Valentino, Film Detective series. I’ve dipped into and enjoyed his Amos Walker mysteries but this was my first exposure to Valentino.

Valentino tracks down lost motion pictures for the Film and Television Archive at UCLA. He’s also rehabilitating an old theater called The Oracle and lives in an apartment in the projection booth. His girlfriend, Harriet Johansen, is a forensic pathologist but she doesn’t have much of a role in this novel.

Among Valentino’s many friends is Ignacio Bozal, who made some money somewhere, then bought and restored a resort in Acapulco that made even more money before he showed up in Hollywood and began making generous contributions to the Film and Television Archive. Bozal gets Valentino interested in a Hollywood actor named Van Oliver who made one movie, a noir called Bleak Street. Insiders who saw Oliver work thought the realism he brought to the part was revolutionary. Bozal suggests that Oliver had a shady past that gave him insight into the behavior of gangsters. Oliver disappeared in 1957 and was widely presumed to have been murdered.

Bozal got his hands on the only surviving copy of Bleak Street. He gives it to Valentino, whose boss thinks the premiere will get huge press if Valentino can solve the mystery of Van Oliver’s disappearance. As the plot unfolds, Valentino discovers that multiple people for multiple reasons want Bleak Street to remain out of the public eye.

Indigo is a pleasant novel written in Estleman’s erudite prose style. Estleman’s investigation introduces the reader to a variety of credible characters, including gangsters, cops, and a Hollywood retiree who might have something of value to contribute if he has a lucid moment. The story misdirects, as a classic mystery should. The solution to the mystery caught me off guard, as a classic mystery should.

Indigo is, in short, the kind of book that should appeal to fans of classic mysteries. It isn’t a thriller — don’t expect shootouts or car chases — but it does create tension at key moments. Valentino is a bright, unassuming fellow whose knowledge of film trivia seems to be unparalleled. That makes Indigo a good choice for fans of film noir as well as fans of mysteries.

RECOMMENDED

INDIGO: A Valentino Mystery
By Loren D Estleman
New York: Forge Books, 2020. $25.99


I confess—I love Valentino mysteries, and I love film noir. I don’t go to church on Sunday; I go to Noir Alley on TCM. Loren D Estleman loves old Hollywood with a barely restrained passion. He has produced five earlier Valentino novels and a collection of Valentino short stories. In INDIGO, it feels as if Estleman channels Eddie Muller, the Czar of Noir and the host of Noir Alley. Not all noirs are genuinely black. Valentino mysteries are essentially cozies with more than a touch of screwball comedy. Only THE BIG CLOCK (1948) succeeded in that stunt, and it appears to be Estleman’s inspiration for INDIGO.

In a surprise party, Ignacio Borzal gifts Valentino a spectacular picture for his restored cinema, the Oracle. Borzal further gifts him with with the film BLEAK STREET, un film noir, that never saw the silver screen because its star, Van Oliver, disappeared during post production. Everyone assumed he was killed because he was connected with both the New York and Los Angeles mob. After a sufficient period, the LAPD put the case on the shelf; Hollywood, the film. Once Valentino hands the film cans off to the lab at UCLA, Henry Anklemire in the PR department hands Valentino the case—to solve for the promotion buzz. After seventy years, what is Valentino supposed to find?

Trouble is what, for there are no secrets in Hollywood. Valentino’s investigation reveals, at first, little more than what the cops found, but films are switched, an old actress is snuffed, and Valentino himself is nearly run over in Los Angeles. To top it all, his film finding and buying nemesis, Mark David Turkus with his Theda Bara vamp, Teddie, in tow, comes out of lurk mode to reveal his own deep, secret reason to deep six—again!—both Valentino’s investigation and BLEAK STREET itself.

INDIGO is a lark for old movie buffs in general and noir aficionados in particular. Valentino fans will be delighted to find Valentino’s usual crew in fine form. Valentino is still dating Harriett in the coroner’s office, Ruth is still the sharp-tongued dragon lady of the department, and Kyle Broadbent is happily married to his former student Fanta. The film noir flourishes are everywhere. Each section of the novel is the title of a famous noir, one character bears a name reminiscent of one used in Max Ophuls’ CAUGHT (1949), and the dialogue has all the snap and charge one could and should expect from a good noir. Furthermore, the loving care Estleman bestows upon old Hollywood geography and architecture produces both a fine sense of nostalgia and a you-are-there feel.

Unfortunately, this novel lacks the one element that marks every film noir—desperation. Even THE BIG CLOCK, for all its screwball comedy, had a high degree of urgency and anxiety, even bite and sacrifice. INDIGO lopes along with a low level of tension. Seriously, how much can there be when all the principals in the original disappearance are either dead or well into their golden years? Even when Turkus shows up, he’s not quite the shark he usually is—even if his secret is classic noir. Teddie usually tries her best to play the femme fatale, but she is quiet here, which is a pity. I was most annoyed about the handling of the contemporary murder. It is a gruesome crime that should have more weight than mere misdirection.

Quibbles aside, readers will be amused by this generally well written romp through old Hollywood. Even if you have not read a Valentino novel—or short story—you will not have any trouble getting into this fun novel. It is a series of standalones in that regard. (I have not read four or five in the series, and I did not skip a beat.) As usual, there is highly informative author’s note and select bibliography at the back. Skip these at your own risk. I did get a sense, however, in the symmetrical nature of the story—opens and closes in the same type of scene, that this might be the end of the series. If so, then it is a good place to end, but I sincerely hope it is not the end of Valentino.

The book gets off to a slow start, bogged down with details vintage film buffs might appreciate, but eventually picks up the pace to deliver an intriguing mystery. Quirky characters enliven the story.

I liked the atmosphere and the characters of this book. It's a story for anyone who loves old movies and Chandler/Hammett stories.
It's recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

This is a mystery for film aficionados. There is a lot of film detail. All that information could take away from the story line but it doesn’t. Film archivist Valentino is busy restoring the old Los Angeles theater that he lives above and at a party in the lobby, he’s invited to view a lost film that was never released. When Valentino takes it to the university to be restored, it disappears, and that is where the noir comes out.

This was a new character for me but I enjoyed it very much. I must thank #Netgalley and #Forgebooks for giving me the opportunity to read Loren D. Estlemans latest Valentino mystery #Indigo I grew up reading Raymond Chandler and Mickey Spillane and the author has got the atmosphere just like them. I really recommend this book.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC. I liked this book. I liked the thrill aspect. the whodunit. I love old Hollywood

Loren D Estleman channels his indisputably tremendous knowledge of classic noir films from the golden age through his protagonist, film archivist and historian, Valentino, the film detective, an obsessive of film noir, working at the Film and TV Preservation Department at UCLA, in Los Angeles. I have to admit that is the first of the series that I have read, a thoroughly enjoyable read, particularly recommended if you are a film noir buff or simply want to know more about noir film classics of the era. Valentino is invited to Ignacio Bozel's estate, where to his shock and joy he is treated to a viewing of a film he has longed to see, the treasure that was made in 1959, Bleak Street, a lost noir film that was never seen by the public, as it was pulled post production and subsequently disappeared.

It is everything Valentino hoped it would be, despite all its allegorical tropes and cliches, it would have been destined to have become a revered noir classic and had it been shown, would have transformed the genre with the new and innovative paths that it would have opened up. Bleak Street would have made a star of Van Oliver, playing a racketeer loosely based on Bugsy Siegel, but with an entirely new and charismatic take in his dangerously edgy and superior performance, with the film infused with a sense of dread and tension that lifted it above the run of the mill. There was much rumour, scandal and gossip swirling around Oliver including mob connections, all which reached their heights when Oliver vanished, assumed to have been murdered by the mob, with the police getting nowhere in their investigations. Bozel gives his copy of the film to Valentino and UCLA in return for a favour.

Excited about planning a premiere for the film, a colleague, Henry Anklemire, advises that attention for the lost film would sky rocket if Valentino were to solve the six decades old murder of Van Oliver. Valentino cannot resist the challenge and finds himself sucked into a dangerous case that echoes the plot of a classic film noir where there are forces determined that Oliver's murder should never be solved and that Bleak Street should never see the light of day for a variety of reasons. This is an entertaining and informative read, engaging with a subject and protagonist that cannot fail to capture the interest of the reader, with Estleman providing a must see list of classic noir movies at the end. Many thanks to Macmillan-Tor/Forge for an ARC.

I really enjoyed reading this book, I love Mr. Estleman's work and this did not disappoint. He's always able to write really good Golden Age Hollywood mysteries. Overall I had a great time reading this.

Indigo by Loren D. Estleman is a great read! A real engrossing page-turner and worth the time of a read!!

<b>A glittering gumshoe, gats and gals in not so old Hollywood!</b>

This is a Valentino mystery; which doesn’t mean that Rudolf Valentino is solving the mystery, unfortunately. This Valentino is a present- day film archivist and historian at UCLA. His business card calls him a “film detective.” Valentino will be given a copy of “Bleak Street” from 1959, if he can solve the mystery of what happened to its movie star.
These are fun, light mysteries, near cozies, if cozies can also have some deep, dark shadows, guys in trench coats, gats, and gals in gowns. I read some of the early books in this series, but haven’t read a bunch of the ones in between and that was fine. One of my favorite things in the book is that after the novel is bibliography and a filmography. In a mystery novel, yeah! Read on Kindle, from Net Galley, in return for a review.

I love Estleman and have literally read almost every book heys written. This is my second Valentino,, a series of soft boiled mystery stories featuring , Valentino, and his adventures as a film restorer in
Los Angeles. These are fast paced stories in which Estleman really displays his encyclopedic knowledge of movies and Hollywood”. Just fun, you learn something about the movies you didn’t know and you get to enjoy a mystery .it’s a fantastic bargain. Get this email and the rest of Estleman. Trust me on this. .

Valentino is celebrating the finishing of The Oracle and deciding what old movie will be shown at the opening when he is invited to the home of the mysterious Ignacio Bozel and offered Bleak Street, a noir movie that never premiered because the star disappeared after the movie was wrapped. Speculation is that the Mob had done him in for various reasons. Now Valentino has a title for his opening until Supernova International intervenes with a court order. Now all Valentino has to do is solve a very old case whose witnesses are dead or dying. So will Bleak Street ever be shown or will it be lights out for Valentino? Plus, there is a recommended list of noir movies to watch at the end!

Thanks Netgalley for the opportunity to read this title!

Valentino search for a restores lost films and in between has restored his own movie theatre. An opportunity to showcase a film thought long lost comes at a price - find out what happened to its star. The more Valentino digs, the more he realises someone doesn't want this film to see light of day.

This was a nice little noir outing with the twist at the end slowly revealing itself in the final chapters. You sort of get a hint that something is not quite what it should be. I hadn't read any of the previous books in this series, those had no real issues with picking up the threads as I read along. Loved the bibliograghy and filmography at the end.

An afternoon's escapism for those that get the chance to read it one sitting.