Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

The Wrong Girl

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

From critically acclaimed author Donis Casey comes the first in a vintage Hollywood mystery series! When a string of baffling clues leads to 1920s film star Bianca LaBelle, it looks like her dark secrets have finally come back to haunt her. Because the only thing worth more than wealth and fame is revenge...

Blanche Tucker longs to escape her drop-dead dull life in tiny Boynton, Oklahoma. Then a suave film producer roars into town. Graham Peyton is Blanche's ticket out of town—he can offer her a life of stardom in Beverly Hills. But the sleezy producer's offer is too good to be true, and once they get to California Blanche finds herself sold to a dangerous man. But she's determined to make a new life for herself, whatever the cost...

Six years later, Blanche has transformed into Bianca LaBelle, the reclusive and beloved film star. But when a private detective visits Bianca's mansion to ask her about remains found on a Santa Monica beach, it seems her shiny new life is going up in smoke. Peyton was murdered, and as this movie star mystery heats up, suspicion falls on the enigmatic Bianca. Did she make him pay for her private wrongs? With all of the twists and turns of a 1920s film, The Wrong Girl follows the daring exploits of a girl who chases her dream from the farm to old Hollywood, while showing just how risky—and rewarding—it can be to go off script.

  • Creators

  • Series

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      September 16, 2019
      Set mostly in Hollywood in 1926, this predictable series launch from Casey (the Alafair Tucker mysteries) introduces actor Bianca LaBelle, whose motion pictures about Bianca Dangereuse, “a Nelly Bly–type journalist and adventurer” are “the biggest money-making movie franchise in the entire Western world.” Bianca feels threatened after a private detective visits her at her Beverly Hills mansion to inquire about Graham Peyton, who went missing in 1921 and whose remains surfaced a week earlier on a Santa Monica beach. Bianca knows too much about Graham, who lured her to Hollywood with promises of stardom in 1920 when she was 15-year-old Blanche Tucker living in Boynton, Okla., but then sold her to a pimp from whom she later escaped. Despite the plot points of con men preying on young women, sexual abuse, ruthless mobsters, and drugs, the danger is as nonmenacing as that in Bianca’s Perils of Pauline–esque flicks. All that’s missing from this melodrama is a mustache-twirling villain. Nevertheless, Casey’s portrait of how stars were born and kept their status during Hollywood’s silent era will intrigue film buffs.

    • Library Journal

      October 18, 2019

      Blanche Tucker is naïve and desperate to escape her small-town existence in Boynton, OK. She falls prey to the charismatic Graham Peyton, who promises her fame and fortune if she will run away with him. Barely escaping his nefarious plans, Blanche strikes out on her own. Six years later, she is widely known as Bianca LaBelle, the enigmatic movie star. However, when Peyton's skeletal remains are uncovered, private detective Ted Oliver is hired to find out who killed him. Unfortunately, the clues lead him straight to LaBelle. Did the glamorous starlet murder Peyton? With this new series launch, Casey ("Alafair Tucker" mysteries) performs a little genre-bending, penning a coming-of-age tale within the context of a 1920s-set cozy mystery that could just as easily been ripped from today's headlines. VERDICT Old Hollywood, silent film stars, the Jazz Age, and strong female characters all combine to create a solid read for crime fiction fans of all stripes.--Julie Whiteley, Stephenville, TX

      Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Library Journal

      October 18, 2019

      Blanche Tucker is na�ve and desperate to escape her small-town existence in Boynton, OK. She falls prey to the charismatic Graham Peyton, who promises her fame and fortune if she will run away with him. Barely escaping his nefarious plans, Blanche strikes out on her own. Six years later, she is widely known as Bianca LaBelle, the enigmatic movie star. However, when Peyton's skeletal remains are uncovered, private detective Ted Oliver is hired to find out who killed him. Unfortunately, the clues lead him straight to LaBelle. Did the glamorous starlet murder Peyton? With this new series launch, Casey ("Alafair Tucker" mysteries) performs a little genre-bending, penning a coming-of-age tale within the context of a 1920s-set cozy mystery that could just as easily been ripped from today's headlines. VERDICT Old Hollywood, silent film stars, the Jazz Age, and strong female characters all combine to create a solid read for crime fiction fans of all stripes.--Julie Whiteley, Stephenville, TX

      Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Booklist

      Starred review from October 15, 2019
      This is the first novel in a spin-off series from Casey's popular Alafair Tucker historical mysteries. It moves from the hardscrabble lives of settlers in WWI-era Oklahoma to the over-the-top glamour of Hollywood in the 1920s. The link between the two series is Blanche Tucker, eighth daughter of Alafair, who wants out of her stifling life in Boynton, Oklahoma, in the worst way. And Blanche gets out, in the worst way, when a handsome con artist and purveyor to brothels and Hollywood producers, seduces and then abandons her to a greasy pimp. How Blanche Tucker becomes Bianca LaBelle, a combination Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson daredevil enchantress, and how her early betrayer ends up as a skeleton buried in a hillside near Santa Monica, are the twin concerns here. Casey plays up the melodrama and delivers a silent-movie feel to the story, using black title cards at the start of each chapter and inter-titles to highlight the action in this Jazz Age mystery. While this is bubbly stuff, it also focuses on the way young women and men were preyed upon and discarded for the sexual use of Hollywood producers, with the press and police turning a blind eye to the abuse. Shocking and amusing by turns, The Wrong Girl starts a new series with great promise.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading