cover image Murder at San Simeon: A Novel of Suspense

Murder at San Simeon: A Novel of Suspense

Particia Hearst, Patricia Hearst. Scribner Book Company, $22.5 (283pp) ISBN 978-0-684-80423-1

The death, under mysterious circumstances, of a prominent Hollywood producer at William Randolph Hearst's legendary California estate, San Simeon, in the 1920s was never solved and quickly disappeared from public view. But not apparently from the mind of the newspaper mogul's granddaughter, who, with coauthor Biddle (Beneath the Wind), pens this tale based on that murder. Described with brio is the relationship between Hearst and his silent screen-star mistress, Marion Davies, whom the publisher kept a virtual prisoner at the castle where she took revenge by throwing wild parties and having assorted, barely concealed affairs. At their best when cataloguing the beauties and excesses of San Simeon, the authors are less successful with fictional character, Catha Kinsolving Burke. The story opens at the funeral of Catha's estranged mother. Catha is astonished to learn that her mother wished to have her ashes sprinkled at San Simeon. After honoring the request, Catha tours the estate and overhears a conversation that implicates her grandmother, personal assistant to Marion Davies, in a murder. The rest of the story alternates between Catha's search for information about her grandmother's real role in the murder and a recreation of life at San Simeon in the '20s. Catha's present-day angst just can't compete against the passions and other extravagances of Hearst's heyday: her mystery merely provides pallid packaging for the still lurid and juicy true-life one. (Sept.)