The Birthday Murder

When her husband is murdered using a method from one of her books, a screenwriter becomes the main suspect

A successful writer and a B-movie director seem like the perfect match in the Hollywood hills, and with him working to produce her novel for an upcoming film, the pair’s recent marriage isn’t the only way that they’re connected. But when the husband is found murdered on the wife’s birthday, using a method of poisoning that was described in one of her books, Victoria suddenly becomes the main suspect as her new happy life comes crashing down around her.

The case appears straightforward from the outside, but the LAPD investigator on the scene finds the truth to be anything but. Though all the signs point to Victoria, there’s no motive to be found. Now, to solve the mystery of whodunnit, he’ll have to dig beneath the veneer of the household and reveal its inner workings, and to understand the deadly drama that unfolded just beneath the surface.

Reprinted for the first time in over half a century, The Birthday Murder is a beautifully written and psychologically astute Golden Age mystery set in old Los Angeles. It will appeal to fans of vintage whodunnits and of standout domestic suspense authors from the era such as Dorothy B. Hughes, Charlotte Armstrong, and Margaret Millar.

Lange Lewis was the pseudonym of Los Angeles-based writer Jane Lewis Brandt (1915-2003). She also wrote as Jane Beynon and under her own name.

Introduction by Randal S. Brandt. Randal S. Brandt is the Head of Cataloging for the Bancroft Library, the primary special collections library at the University of California Berkeley, and curates the library’s California Detective Fiction Collection.