In modern-day Hollywood, a wisecracking copywriter uncovers the deadly secret of a legendary 1904 movie that was never finished . . . .
When Binnie Bernhardt, stalled in her career and unlucky in love, gets a life-changing assignment at Paramount Studios to develop a feature called City of the Sun, she knows that her film is going to be about a 1904 Hollywood movie called City of the Sun that was never completed. What she doesn't know is the diabolical reason why the 1904 film wasn't finished.
In this multi-era historical novel, we join Binnie on her wild ride between present-day Los Angeles, and the film’s 1904 New York, Hollywood and Berlin locations, as she becomes more and more enthralled with City of the Sun’s cast of characters, who are trying to: 1) make the first American feature picture and 2) perfect poison gas for the upcoming world war. Except, not everyone knows about (2).
When a rival producer is murdered and the Binnie's project falls apart, she impulsively sets off to Berlin to fulfill another dream, to finally learn to speak German. But in Berlin, she discovers that the story of her film and the story of her life still have surprising—and deadly—connections.
City of the Sun is about the movie industry before the beginning, when Hollywood was just empty sunlight and no one could imagine what was coming. It’s about how pictures get made. And unmade. The irresistible appeal of murder. And the unquenchable lust, in every era, for a great story.
- ISBN10 1685891756
- ISBN13 9781685891756
- Publish Date 2 January 2079
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Melville House
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 320
- Language English
- URL https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781685891756