Rachel West Hollywood Mysteries Series

Nostalgia can be a killer, and closing the case falls to Rachel West and her Hollywood neighbors in the next show business mystery from beloved author Emma Mills.

Tabloid journalist turned amateur investigator Rachel West isn’t entirely sure what she wants to do with her life. Even with her recent windfall, Rachel is still living in her less than glamorous one-bedroom apartment at the Palm Vista, still largely subsisting on snacks from the gas station, and still entirely uncertain about what she wants in her career and in love.

It’s easier to solve other people’s mysteries than her own problems, so Rachel agrees to accompany her friend Casper Finch to the reunion of his cult-classic childhood sketch comedy show The California Kids Crew. Online rumors of a “curse” plague the group as the death of one of the show’s young stars years ago receives a new spotlight, and not all of the cast members are eager to revisit their shared history.

But when the reunion turns deadly, it’s up to Rachel, Casper, and their Palm Vista neighbors to uncover a killer who wants nothing more than to keep the past buried…at any cost.

Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series.

Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the ready: it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. Copyediting a celeb gossip rag isn’t the glossy entertainment journalism Rachel thought she would be doing but hey, it pays the bills. Some of them, anyway.

Rachel’s life changes overnight after meeting Molly Byrne, a former child star and current tabloid fave for her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends, and what begins as a chance encounter in a nightclub bathroom quickly grows into a genuine friendship.

When Molly is found dead, Hollywood accepts her death as an overdose. But Rachel knows for a fact her friend was clean—and she’s not alone in her suspicions that Molly was murdered.

With the help of a ragtag group of residents from her apartment building, a friendly paparazzo, and a handsome detective, Rachel must solve the mystery of Molly’s death before she’s written off for good.