Murder at the Summer Theater

Rehearsals grow tense at a summer theater on the Connecticut shore. The lead actress goes missing â€" or was she murdered?

Juliet Van Allen and Elmer Vartanian, the “Double V” duo, are called in on the case, but even with Juliet pretending to be an actress and newcomer to the cast, the players are guarding their secrets closely. There are spurned lovers, jealous wives, scene-stealers and heartbreakers, with enough spirit of vengeance to fill up the loge. Will the show go on? Even when a body is found?

Murder at the Summer Theater is the fifth book in the Double V Mysteries series set in New England in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

If you like the charm of a classic film, this “cozy noir” will return you to an era of soft ocean breezes and a glamorous game of suspicion played between acts. The painted backdrop is the heyday of summer theatre, when greats from the New York stage and Hollywood performed in barns and tents on New England’s famed “straw hat circuit.” Passionate accusations and grim consequences lurk in the dressing room. Join the nervous producers on the veranda for a champagne cocktail.

It’s a seaside caper where murder is in the spotlight in the summer of 1951, and Juliet and Elmer are on the verge of a new professional â€" and personal â€" partnership.