Ed Ifkovic
1) Make Believe
"A vivid, atmospheric mystery about 1951 Hollywood...this is a winner." —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author
In June 1951, Edna Ferber heads to Hollywood to support her friend Max Jeffries who has found himself blacklisted after the McCarthy hearings in Washington rattled Hollywood with allegations of Communist-leaning sympathies. Edna first met Max when he worked on the 1927 Broadway production of Show Boat,
..."Who would have thought that, of all the real-life characters to have a second life as detectives, Edna Ferber, now largely forgotten as a writer, would emerge as one of the best?" —Booklist STARRED review
In 1904, Edna Ferber is a 19-year-old girl reporter for the Appleton, Wisconsin, Crescent, an occupation her family considers scandalous for a proper young girl. By chance, she interviews Harry Houdini, in town visiting
...3) Cold Morning
January 3, 1935. The trial opens in Flemington, New Jersey, for the man accused of "the crime of the century." And Edna Ferber is there to cover it.
1932. On a windy March 1 night, Charles Lindbergh, America's hero, discovers that his twenty-month-old son has been snatched from his crib. A ransom is arranged. Yet two months later, Little Lindy is found in a ditch near his Hopewell home, several weeks dead from a blow to the head.
It
...Who murdered the handsome young actor? And why?
In 1940, against the chilling backdrop of Hitler's rise and the specter of another war, Edna Ferber decides to follow an old dream: to act on the stage. Selecting The Royal Family, the comedy she wrote with George S. Kaufman, for her starring role, she travels to Maplewood, New Jersey. But her escape from the troubling daily headlines is short lived. Before opening night, a mysterious
...5) Run Cold
"The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold."
—Robert W. Service, "The Cremation of Sam McGee"
Jack Mabie claims to be the meanest man in Alaska, yet the old sourdough seems to be just one of the crusty geezers in every roadhouse bewildered by how his lawless frontier life has morphed into the pastel 1950s world of martini cocktail bars up
...6) Old News
"This is Ifkovic's eighth outing with Edna Ferber as sleuth, and he brings the characters of post-Great War Chicago to life: the accents, the clothes, the food, the traditions." —Historical Novel Society
A sweltering July in Chicago, 1923. Edna Ferber, now a famous short-story writer, is supposed to be researching the novel that will become So Big, her Pulitzer-Prize winner. With her mother, Julia, she spends the week
...7) Cafe Europa
"Ifkovic successfully blends homicide with a loving homage to Budapest on the eve of World War I." —Kirkus Reviews
In 1914, as rumors of war float across Europe, Edna Ferber travels to Budapest with Winifred Moss, a famous London suffragette, to visit the homeland of her dead father and to see the sights. Author Edna is fascinated by ancient Emperor Franz Joseph and by the faltering Austro-Hungarian Empire, its pomp and circumstance
..."Fans of mysteries featuring literary figures as crime-solvers will thoroughly enjoy this series." —Booklist
It's 1927, and "the Ferber season on Broadway" is about to begin. The musical adaptation of Show Boat by Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern opens on December 27, and The Royal Family, her comedy of manners written with George Kaufman, opens the following night. But despite the excitement, author Edna Ferber
...9) Mood Indigo
She was 1932 Broadway's newest sensation. Then she was murdered.
Three years after the Crash that ushered in the Great Depression, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Edna Ferber finds herself a guest at Noël Coward's lavish birthday party. The British wit, enjoying the Christmas holiday season in New York and bracing for a trip to Cleveland in the new year, has filled his room with rich, famous folks whose lives continue
...10) Lone Star
It's 1955, and Edna Ferber is basking in the success of her blockbuster novel Giant. Headed to Los Angeles, where director George Stevens and Warner Brothers Studio are in the final days of filming her Texas oil epic, she is looking forward to meeting Rock Hudson, Liz Taylor, and especially the young James Dean.
But there is trouble brewing. Dean, the new box-office sensation and teen heartthrob, has been accused of fathering a child with an
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