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A review by dollycas
Deadly Director's Cut by Vicki Delany
5.0
Dollycas’s Thoughts
Hollywood has come to the Catskills to shoot a movie directed by the famous Elias Theropodus using Haggerman’s Resort as a backdrop. The staff and guests are enamored by the stars in the presence but resort manager Elizabeth Grady has her hands full handling the resort’s regular guests while being treated like the director’s lackey and his over-the-top needs and requests. She just needs to remember the much-needed fee the production company is paying for this major inconvenience.
Elias has scheduled a dinner in one of the private dining rooms and then he and his guests will join the rest of the resort’s guests for dancing and dessert. As the event wraps up Elias collapses on the way to his car and he is rushed to the hospital. He dies shortly thereafter and it is determined that he was poisoned.
At first, it doesn’t look good for Elizabeth and her resort but none of the other guests becomes ill. It seems the director’s death was an isolated event and had to be premeditated. The man was a tyrant to work for, demanding absolute perfection, so he has the actors and his crew on edge most of the time. Would one of them kill him to get a new director? A rumored womanizer . . . did he scorn the wrong woman? Or could one of the resort’s many guests have reason to want the man dead?
Elizabeth finds herself with a myriad of suspects. Can she wrap up the case before the movie wraps and the guilty party jets back to Hollywood? Or will here own days in the Catskills be numbered?
“There’s nothing a man can do, that I can’t do better and in heels”
― Ginger Rogers
― Ginger Rogers
“I did everything Fred did, only backward and in high heels.”
― Ginger Rogers
― Ginger Rogers
When I read about Elizabeth Grady these Ginger Rodgers quotes come to mind. She is working in a job normally held by a man and probably does it better than any man especially when you add a murder investigation to her list of duties. In this second book in the series, she is on even firmer footing. This is good because director Elias Theropodus’ fame has truly gone to his head and treats everyone including Elizabeth horribly. I loved the way Elizabeth held her ground not only with Elias but others as she investigated his death. I was delighted to see her and Rishard getting closer. He is the type of man she deserves although there is that reporter still hanging around.
I am so glad that Ms. Delany filled in more of Elizabeth’s backstory. Being the child of a movie star isn’t easy and she and her mother were kind of thrown together when her mother inherited the resort. They are getting closer and still learning about each other as well. The way the author is developing these characters is perfect, believable, and comfortable. After reading many of her books I can tell you she excels at character development, making each character unique and engaging. This particular book had a rather large cast when you add in the Hollywood people but they are each well thought out and presented in a way to make them memorable.
Ms. Delaney has given readers a complicated mystery to enjoy. Set in the 1950s it comes down to legwork, observations, and listening carefully or eavesdropping to work through the variety of suspects. There is tons of drama with the movie cast in life and in the movie and each could have motive to have killed off the director. I was doing my best to stay one step ahead of Elizabeth but soon I found myself so caught up in the story I wasn’t even concentrating on any theories of my own. I felt transported right to the beautiful Catskill resort, hiking around the trails with Elizabeth, going into town for an egg cream, worrying about Velvet getting her heart broken, and more. For me, that truly makes A Perfect Escape.
Deadly Director’s Cut