The Bad Always Die Twice

Crane, the daughter of movie icon Lana Turner, makes her promising fiction debut with the first in a new series featuring Hollywood realtor Nikki Harper. When the corpse of 1950s TV star Rex March turns up in the bed of Nikki's promiscuous real estate partner, Jessica Martin, the discovery is a double shock as Rex apparently died in a plane crash six months earlier. Nikki utilizes her formidable talents%E2%80%94a deceptive sweetness, a beguiling smile, and unmitigated chutzpah%E2%80%94to cajole pertinent information out of unwilling persons of interest. But her greatest asset is name-dropping, particularly the name of her famous mother, legendary screen actress Victoria Bordeaux, who eventually adds her own shrewdness and encyclopedic knowledge of Hollywood's secrets to help Nikki's investigation. An amusing and ingenious finale wraps up this good-humored mystery. Crane is also the author of Detour: A Hollywood Story, an autobiography, and Lana: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies. (Sept.)