Review: Nice blend of well-researched facts and enjoyable fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 15, 2012
Set in the roaring twenties and blending Hollywood's glitz with Chicago's gangsters, Jeffrey Stone's Play Him Again follows the long con, the short con and the actor's conning skills in a tale of mystery, revenge and movie-making history. A masterful opening scene orients and disorients the reader beautifully, leading into a world of ships, movies and alcohol, where the law is bent gently and bodies break for vengeance. Prohibition rules the law courts and community rules the waves. But a con gone wrong has left Matt "Hud" Hudson's friend dead, and pulls Hud back into the badboy world of his youth.The plot's exciting and the mystery intriguing, plus there's an added bonus of meticulously researched and well-told details of history and movie-making. The whole is a pleasing blend of fiction and fact, with all the dark glow of film noir, the narration of a fine documentary, and pitch perfect dialog with inconspicuous subtitles perfectly placed.At last I know where the phrase "The real McCoy" comes from. I know how sound was added to film. I appreciate a con-artist's acting skills. And, by the end of the tale, I know who did what and why. The tangled morals of vengeance and drink are nicely balanced with great characters, plausible relationships, and a truly evocative sense of time and place. Highly recommended for film and mystery readers--I hope the author has more adventures planned for these characters.Disclosure: I received a free ecopy of this novel from the author in exchange for my honest review.