This is the second book in Estleman's series featuring Valentino, a UCLA film archivist or Film Detective. I really enjoyed the first entry in this series, Frames, which was about Valentino finding the fabled lost footage from the epic silent film Greed along with a dead body in an old movie theater called the Oracle that Valentino bought and wants to restore to its former glory. Well in Alone, he is still working on the restoration but in the mean time a millionaire developer named Rankin tells Valentino about some lost footage of Greta Garbo where she debuted in an early ad called How Not to Dress. Rankin's dead wife was a friend of Garbo's and along with the footage, his wife had corresponded with Garbo for years before both of their deaths. But then Rankin shoots and kills his assistant who was supposedly blackmailing him because of a letter from Garbo to Rankin's wife showing that they were in fact Lesbian lovers. But is this really the truth or did Rankin kill the assistant for another reason?
To me, this novel was sort of a letdown. Like I said, I really enjoyed the first novel in the series with Valentino's involvement with the Greed footage. But this one was lacking in that Valentino really wasn't that relevant to the murder by Rankin and subsequent investigation. Valentino does have some problems with a shady building inspector who wants a payoff to okay the renovation of the Oracle and he has some on and off moments with his girlfriend, Harriet, who is also an LAPD medical examiner. But overall, there was not much action and very little mystery to the story. I did however enjoy the tidbits about early Hollywood and Greta Garbo in particular. Estleman also provides a good bibliography of related books as well as Garbo films at the end. I will probably read more in the series and hopefully the next one, Alive!, about Bela Lugosi's screen test for Frankenstein will be better.
To me, this novel was sort of a letdown. Like I said, I really enjoyed the first novel in the series with Valentino's involvement with the Greed footage. But this one was lacking in that Valentino really wasn't that relevant to the murder by Rankin and subsequent investigation. Valentino does have some problems with a shady building inspector who wants a payoff to okay the renovation of the Oracle and he has some on and off moments with his girlfriend, Harriet, who is also an LAPD medical examiner. But overall, there was not much action and very little mystery to the story. I did however enjoy the tidbits about early Hollywood and Greta Garbo in particular. Estleman also provides a good bibliography of related books as well as Garbo films at the end. I will probably read more in the series and hopefully the next one, Alive!, about Bela Lugosi's screen test for Frankenstein will be better.
