The Four of Hearts (#13)

Lew Bascom is an idea man, and he has quite an idea. To put his career on the fast track, Bascom plans to pen a film about Hollywood’s longest-running theatrical feud—Blythe Stewart and her daughter Bonnie’s rivalry with Jack Royale and his son Ty. The twist? Bascom wants the four actors to play themselves in the film.

The film’s producer insists on bringing Ellery Queen, a successful New York writer, out to Hollywood to help close the deal. Only problem is that Bascom – a notorious procrastinator – isn’t interested in outside help. So beautiful gossip columnist Paula Paris offers Queen an in by explaining the specifics of the feud ranging back to when Blythe and Jack were in a hot and heavy romance, throughout their unexpected separation, and into their subsequent marriages to other people. Meanwhile, the deepening hatred of their adult children has become the latest tabloid fodder.

But when Blythe Steward and Jack Royale turn up dead, Queen must go from screenwriter to mystery solver before more Hollywood superstars become Hollywood casualties.