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IN A TEAPOT
by Terence Faherty
Crum Creek Press, September 2005
128 pages
$18.00
ISBN: 1932325042


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

Scott Elliott is days away from marrying the girl of his dreams, the lovely Ella Englehart, when his boss assigns him to avert a scandal that threatens to scuttle the 1948 production of THE TEMPEST. Though some of the top British film stars are near signing on to make the picture, considered to be a can't miss project by the trade papers, even a hint of bad press would be enough to send them scurrying for their tea and crumpets, leaving the producer without a cast.

Anxious to get filming underway, the producer hires Hollywood Security to do what's necessary to put the brakes on a romantic relationship between the only star who's signed a contract, Forrest Combs, and a burlesque star named Betty Ann Baker.

At first the job seems easy. All Scott has to do is find Betty Ann and offer her some cash to drop out of Forrest's life. But of course things are rarely easy. Betty Ann swears she's fallen in love with Combs and refuses to take any amount of money to end their relationship. When Scott finds her boss, Ian Kendall, dead in his office at the burlesque house, it becomes apparent that something more complicated than an inconvenient love affair is going on.

With the clock ticking ever closer to his wedding day, Scott finds himself in the middle of a drama that echoes THE TEMPEST in every way. In fact, you could say, as Ella does, that the impending wedding is the play-within-a-play of IN A TEAPOT where a long-plotted fantasy of revenge and rebirth plays out to its own tragic conclusion.

With pitch-perfect writing, fabulous period details and crisp wisecracking dialogue, IN A TEAPOT is an entertaining read that clips along as fast and smooth as a Bentley on Hollywood Boulevard at midnight.

Get out your holiday gift lists, ladies and gentlemen. Two-time Shamus winner Terence Faherty has given us another carefully-crafted jewel of a story in IN A TEAPOT. This unusual book, a perfect length for an evening's entertainment and illustrated by Robin Agnew, is enough to make even the most jaded mystery lover on your list smile. Check it out.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, November 2005

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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