Review: Roaring Twenties & Mysterious Entertainment
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 23, 2012
Play Him Again is the first book in the Matt Hudson series by Jeffrey Stone. The Roaring Twenties are my favorite era. I really wish I lived during that time to experience silent films, the social culture, the use of automobiles and telephones. Who wouldn't want to live during the Motion Picture/Jazz Age? So when the author contacted me for a possible review, I made room in my reading schedule to read Play Him Again before the new year.Silence was golden in Hollywood during the Roaring Twenties. Sound for movies was too expensive. There were only two studios with sound equipment, Fox Film Corporation and Warner Brothers. Most industry people thought talking pictures were just a fad. Oh, how wrong they were!Matt Hudson, a rumrunner and "the preferred bootlegger of the movie industry", wanted to produce a talking picture but neither of the two studios would lease him their facilities. Financing was not a problem; Hudson lacked the production. So Hudson's friend, Danny, conned a Chicago gangster into buying a motion picture sound device. Problem is, the sound device is bogus. When the gangster figures it out, Danny ends up dead. The police ruled it an accidental death and closed the case. But Hudson is determined to find Danny's killer and avenge his death, all while staying alive himself.Play Him Again begins with action; the Prologue is a detailed scene where a character is in a Coupe...in the ocean! Jeffrey Stone writes with such description that I could sense the character's panic through the words. The book is a history lesson set in fiction. I learned a lot about film-making, rumrunners, bootlegging and smuggling of liquor, talking pictures, and three types of cons. Well done, Jeffrey Stone. Play Him Again is the first book in the Matt Hudson series. I wonder what other crimes Hud will solve...or commit.Literary Marie of Precision Reviews