Tinseltown

I wanted to give this four stars - it's excellently written, genuinely interesting despite its four hundred pages. However, there were two major problems that were not evident until the end. This is not a spoiler: one, the author continually hinted at deeper revelations but they never came; two, he doesn't know the answer to the mystery but only gives his theory. This is disappointing as I'm sure other students of the crime have equally plausible conclusions.

My book club picked this in the midst of Serial-induced true crime fever. It's not a genre that I'm widely read in, or that I have much interest in? Nor am I terribly interested in mysteries, generally. I liked the obvious research that Mann did into this unsolved Hollywood murder, and I liked all the background detail about Hollywood in the 20s. It was a bit of a slog to get through... there's a LOT of detail about Hollywood in the 20s here. Also a lot of people to keep track of.

I would say I recommend it if you are particularly interested in true crime, or Hollywood in the 20s, or some other aspect of this. It might be a bit much for a general reader like me.