Last Night at Hollywood Canteen – ARC Book Review

Perhaps the best place in 1943 Hollywood to see the stars is the Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed exclusively by those in show business. Murder mystery playwright Annie Laurence, new in town after a devastating breakup, definitely hopes to rub elbows with the right stars. Maybe then she can get her movie made.

But Hollywood proves to be more than tinsel and glamour. When despised film critic Fiona Farris is found dead in the Canteen kitchen, Annie realizes any one of the Canteen’s luminous volunteers could be guilty of the crime. To catch the killer, Annie falls in with Fiona’s friends, a bitter and cynical group―each as uniquely unhappy in their life and career as Annie is in hers―that call themselves the Ambassador’s Club.

Solving a murder in real life, it turns out, is a lot harder than writing one for the stage. And by involving herself in the secrets and lies of the Ambassador’s Club, Annie just might have put a target on her own back.

This has two of my favorite elements–a historical fiction with a taste of thriller.

Meet Annie, a screenwriter. After dealing with a breakup and closing of the theatre, Annie moves to Los Angeles to renew her career. The year was 1941 when the world was at war. She meets Fiona, who is a critic and who seem to criticize on each and every one of the movies and plays. At the Hollywood Canteen one night, Fiona was found murdered and someone was responsible for the murder. Annie along with few others, calling themselves as Ambassador’s Club set off to find the murderer as they know that LAPD are incompetent to find the culprit.

I actually enjoyed reading this thriller. This was a fast paced thriller, there were some twists and turns along the way and the story is mainly told from Annie’s POV. Reading this book gave me the feeling of being in the 1940’s and got a glimpse of what the life was like back in the early 1940’s. Of course, there’s weren’t any DNA testing or forensics at the time so the story was set realistic as possible. The author must have done some research on what the life was like in Hollywood during the 1940’s during the war period. Overall, this was to me an enjoyable read although there were some parts in the book where it kind of dragged a bit, which lowered my rating overall to a four star reading. Overall this book worth four stars!

Many thanks to Netgalley and Souce Landmark for the ARC. The book is based on my honest opinion only.