Star Flight

A movie star’s suicide draws a young woman into the deadly shadows of a Hollywood scandal in this novel from “a master of suspense” (Mary Higgins Clark). More than fifty years ago, Victoria Frazer and Roger Brandt were the most popular stars of the silver screen—until a notorious and tragic love affair on set in the Appalachians destroyed their lives. It was there, at the foot of Rumbling Bald Mountain in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where Victoria drowned herself, and where Roger would remain—drifting into obscurity as a tortured recluse. Now, a half-century later, screenwriter Lauren Castle has arrived at a Lake Lure resort in the wake of a more recent tragedy: the suspicious death of her husband, a documentary filmmaker who was investigating the legendary Hollywood scandal. Lauren’s husband held the most closely guarded secret of all: She is Victoria’s granddaughter. Only one other person knew her secret, the couple’s close friend, Gordon Heath, whom Lauren is inexplicably drawn to. Now she must solve a mystery that links two generations, has claimed more than one victim, and has yet to reach its deadly and final fade-out. New York Times–bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Phyllis A. Whitney “is, and always will be, the Grand Master of her craft” (Barbara Michaels). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author’s estate. A movie star's suicide draws a young woman into the deadly shadows of a Hollywood scandal in this novel from "a master of suspense-(Mary Higgins Clark). More than fifty years ago, Victoria Frazer and Roger Brandt were the most popular stars of the silver screen--until a notorious and tragic love affair on set in the Appalachians destroyed their lives. It was there, at the foot of Rumbling Bald Mountain in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where Victoria drowned herself, and where Roger would remain -- drifting into obscurity as a tortured recluse. Now, a half-century later, screenwriter Lauren Castle has arrived at a Lake Lure resort in the wake of a more recent tragedy: the suspicious death of her husband, a documentary filmmaker who was investigating the legendary Hollywood scandal. Lauren's husband held the most closely guarded secret of all: She is Victoria's granddaughter. Only one other person knew her secret, the couple's close friend, Gordon Heath, whom Lauren is inexplicably drawn to. Now she must solve a mystery that links two generations, has claimed more than one victim, and has yet to reach its deadly and final fade-out. New York Times –bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Phyllis A. Whitney "is, and always will be, the Grand Master of her craft-(Barbara Michaels). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author's estate A movie star’s suicide draws a young woman into the deadly shadows of a Hollywood scandal in this novel from “a master of suspense” (Mary Higgins Clark). More than fifty years ago, Victoria Frazer and Roger Brandt were the most popular stars of the silver screen—until a notorious and tragic love affair on set in the Appalachians destroyed their lives. It was there, at the foot of Rumbling Bald Mountain in Lake Lure, North Carolina, where Victoria drowned herself, and where Roger would remain—drifting into obscurity as a tortured recluse. Now, a half-century later, screenwriter Lauren Castle has arrived at a Lake Lure resort in the wake of a more recent tragedy: the suspicious death of her husband, a documentary filmmaker who was investigating the legendary Hollywood scandal. Lauren’s husband held the most closely guarded secret of all: She is Victoria’s granddaughter. Only one other person knew her secret, the couple’s close friend, Gordon Heath, whom Lauren is inexplicably drawn to. Now she must solve a mystery that links two generations, has claimed more than one victim, and has yet to reach its deadly and final fade-out. New York Times –bestselling and Edgar Award–winning author Phyllis A. Whitney “is, and always will be, the Grand Master of her craft” (Barbara Michaels). This ebook features an illustrated biography of Phyllis A. Whitney including rare images from the author’s estate. **From the jacket** Phyllis A. Whitney spins a chilling tale of Lauren Castle's search for the truth behind her husband's accidental death and her famous grandmother's suicide. Two generations divide these tragic events, yet both seem curiously and inextricably linked. In 1938, two of Hollywood's most glittering young stars, Victoria Frazer and Roger Brandt, were cast in a movie set in these mountains. Drawn to each other with a passion that was destined to cool, their ill-fated affair ended with the birth of an illegitimate daughter, Victoria's death, and the end of Roger's career. Ostracized by the movie industry, judged morally corrupt by his fans, Roger Brandt stayed on in North Carolina, but still the scandal became the stuff of Hollywood legend. Many years later, Lauren Castle is drawn into Brandt's orbit by a more recent tragedy: the death of her filmmaker husband. Only Lauren knows that she is the daughter of Roger and Victoria's love child. As she begins to make sense of what happened to her husband and what happened in her family's past, she risks exposing herself to an evil that reaches with undiminished virulence across two generations.