Review of Round Up the Unusual Suspects

Last week I had a guest post with author Elizabeth Crowens and today she's back with her latest mystery as well as my thoughts on the book. This book revolves around the filming of Casablanca with guest starring roles for a few other classic 40s movies. You can read last week's guest post about the work authors do AFTER writing and enter the giveaway HERE.

More About Round Up the Usual Suspects

Against the backdrop of WWII, no one expected to find a murdered stagehand on a Warner Brothers sound stage. With so much at stake, Jack L. Warner hires Babs Norman and Guy Brandt, the two young private eyes who recently resolved his high-profile Maltese Falcon/Blackbird Killer Case. Social justice crusader Leon Lewis suspects local Nazi sympathizers are responsible. Lewis assigns a German stuntman, a veteran of the decadent subculture of Weimar Berlin nightlife and one of his newest operatives, to join forces with the private detectives.

According to Warner, the show must go on, but everything from bomb scares to the Japanese internment, to unruly parrots, forbidden love, and family crises conspires against solving the crime. “As Time Goes By,” actors Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, and the rest of the Casablanca ensemble join the professional private eyes to round up the unusual suspects and capture the killer.

Love 1940s classic movies? Treat yourself to the award-winning Hounds of the Hollywood Baskervilles (Book 1) and Bye, Bye Blackbird (Book 2) of Elizabeth Crowens’ Babs Norman’s Golden Age of Hollywood mystery series by Level Best Books. And check out my review of Bye, Bye Blackbird HERE.

More About Elizabeth Crowens

Elizabeth Crowens is bi-coastal between New York and Los Angeles, where she has worn many hats in the entertainment industry. Awards include Lefty nominee for Best Humorous Mystery, Agatha nominee in multiple categories, MWA-NY Chapter Leo B. Burstein Scholarship, NYFA grant, Eric Hoffer Award, Glimmer Train, Killer Nashville Claymore finalist, Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Top Picks, two Grand prize and six First prize Chanticleer Awards.

Crowens writes Golden Age of Hollywood mystery with humor and alternate history in her Time Traveler Professor series. She also has a popular Caption Contest on Facebook.

Catch Up with Elizabeth Crowens:  

Website: https://pictbooks.review/au3FRAUw

Goodreads: https://pictbooks.tours/rpGMT

BookBub: https://pictbooks.review/jolXmrhY

Instagram: @ecrowens

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Thoughts on Round Up the Unusual Suspects

Round Up the Unusual Suspects is the third book in the Golden Age of Hollywood mystery series so of course there's a mystery (a mysterious death, if you must know). But in this book, for me the mystery seemed to take a backseat to the complicated personal lives of private investigators Babs Norman and Guy Brandt. Happily, that included a sneak peek behind the scenes of making movies in the 1940s including the classic Casablanca. So much Casablanca trivia. Is it all true? I hope so because I loved it all. Although at times I felt the Casblanca tidbits slowed down the pace of the book.

The characters - both fictional and historical - in this book are richly developed and run the gamut from the rich and famous to outliers living on the fringe of society. This book is about much more than who killed who. It raises questions of the ethics of government decisions made during World War II as well as the prejudices many groups faced in this era. And as always, it included just enough screwball comedy situations to keep me smiling.

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