The Director's Cut

"I wanted a job. I got a murder."When makeup artist Toby Swanson joined the Fox Film Corporation in 1914, he hoped to sneak a kiss from the studio's newest star, the seductive vamp Theda Bara. But when a scene goes horribly wrong, Bara's film is cancelled and her dreams of stardom crushed. Unless. . .. . .she can prove what looked like an accident was really murder.So together, Theda and Toby dive into showbiz New York, from dancing with a young Rudolph Valentino to sharing the vaudeville stage with Sophie Tucker and learning lockpicking secrets from Harry Houdini, all leading to a long-forgotten church crypt holding a desperate secret.It's New York at the dawn of the twentieth century, a time of big bridges, big skyscrapers and big money. And it's a time when movies - the biggest new business of them all - joins hands with the oldest.The Director's Cut is the first of the Theda Bara Mysteries.