Valhollywood; Christopher E. Appel

What happens when a murder occurs in the afterlife? That, in a very broad nutshell, is the premise of “Valhollywood” where an up-and-coming actor suddenly finds himself to be a resident of the afterlife, where the populace are the famous and infamous. The story is an homage to the authors love of Golden Era film wrapped up in a noir murder mystery with a very heavy sprinkling of spiritualism—maybe too much, but more on that in a second. Jake, still grappling with the fact that he’s dead and rubbing elbows with Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, and Ava Gardener, finds himself suddenly thrust in a whodunit murder mystery when one of Valhollywood’s residents actually dies ahead of fading as her fame dwindles to nothingness. Solving that murder and unraveling how it happened was where this novel truly shined! Unfortunately, the detour this book makes left something to be desired.

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If you’re a movie buff or a lover of classic film stars, you’ll definitely appreciate all the cameo’s that “Valhollywood” has. I’m not a big film buff, but I did enjoy looking up the unfamiliar names to see that, yes! This person was a huge stage and film star in their time. The book also takes an interesting look at the price of fame and the lengths that people will go to maintain it, which was doubly interesting since all the characters are already dead and know they are dead. Yet their fear of fading, of not losing themselves to the fantasy of what the public remembers them as thanks to their roles or scandals, still remains. As does a fear of the unknown, of what comes when they fade from Valhollywood, and what actually maintains this realm where only celebrities can dwell. So, when a desperate actress ends up dead and no one knows who, or why, or HOW, it happened, it was a really fun little mystery for Jake to explore while unraveling how this realm works. Or it could have been. Unfortunately, the focus of the book kind of, well, loses focus part way through.

Unfortunately, that later half of the book really started to feel its length to me. The author has crafted an intriguing afterlife that has a type of magic to it based in spiritualism. The book meanders away from the murder mystery and the gangsters after Jake to focus in on this secondary plot about the beings keeping Valhollywood functional and focusing on an attempt to unlock a path to those beings and their power. The author attempts to link the original mystery to this but, unfortunately, can’t quite do it in a way that I felt was as gripping as the murder mystery. The pacing slowed dramatically, and then the solving of the original crime ended up feeling lack luster. If the entire subplot with Edmund had been cut, nothing would have been lost, in my opinion. For me, if the story had remained more focused on that supernatural mystery aspect and how it ties into the fame that keeps these actors in Valhollywood, I would have rated this higher. But because of my dwindling interest in Edmund and what he was attempting to do—or stop?—and why Jake even mattered to his goals, and just how much that took away from an otherwise thrilling and action packed story, I’m giving this 3 stars. And thanks to the publisher for sending me a review copy.