There is nothing like a tale of old Hollywood for glamour, drama, dreams and…bloodshed. In the 1950s, stars and star makers, and gangsters and mafiosos, found their lives intertwined. From finances to romances, the famous and the infamous met, mingled and married in California and Las Vegas. The results were stormy at best and murderous at worst.

In A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD, prolific true-crime author Casey Sherman presents the intersections of the film industry and crime syndicates through a look at the Turner-Stompanato murder case.

"Sherman offers a page-turner of an examination into one of the country’s most notorious crimes. The narrative style is brisk and readable."

In 1958, Johnny Stompanato, a mid-level gangster and gigolo and friend of the much more powerful Mickey Cohen, was stabbed to death in the home of award-winning and beloved actress Lana Turner. Turner’s 14-year-old daughter, Cheryl, claimed responsibility, saying that she stabbed Stompanato in defense of her mother. Stompanato was Turner’s on-again/off-again boyfriend, the latest in a string of often disastrous and even abusive relationships Turner had since her discovery at age 15. The investigation into and fallout from his death revealed not just Turner’s own troubled history but also the cultivated yet dangerous connections between the entertainment industry and the mob.

How did the former “sweater girl” and the crook get together in the first place? It began as a plan to blackmail or extort Turner and ended in violence with plenty of misery along the way. Sherman writes about Turner’s rags-to-riches success and her many heartaches, and he introduces Cohen, Stompanato and the other criminals who preyed upon so many of the Hollywood elite. The story is incredible --- thrilling, suspenseful, often pitiful. Turner and others like her were caught in a system of exploitation that made them vulnerable to many forms of manipulation and harm. And young Cheryl was a witness to much of it and was even less powerful. What really happened on that April night? Sherman offers a page-turner of an examination into one of the country’s most notorious crimes.

The narrative style is brisk and readable. There is not much analysis here, but the storytelling is sharp and compelling. The book sheds light on cultural history and relations that tainted the glitz and aspirations, and the talents and successes, of some of the movie industry’s biggest stars and most important artists. There are dark and astonishing moments here across decades of entertainment. At the center is Lana Turner and the two women closest to her: her mother and her daughter. Sherman always portrays her affecting humanity with respect and honesty.

Rife with sexism, crime, secrets, power, love of all kinds and plenty of authorial conjecture, A MURDER IN HOLLYWOOD offers an ambiguous theory of responsibility and leaves readers with plenty of questions and perhaps an interest in reading more about the seedy underbelly of mid-century Hollywood.