Martin Turnbull: 12 books

Have you ever wanted to climb into a time machine and visit Hollywood during its heyday? Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon become a haven for Hollywood hopefuls...

Have you ever wanted to climb into a time machine and visit Hollywood during its heyday? Summer, 1936: "Gone with the Wind," Margaret Mitchell’s first novel, takes the world by storm. Everyone in Hollywood knows Civil War pictures don’t make a dime, but renegade producer David...

Have you ever wanted to climb into a time machine and visit Hollywood during its heyday? Hollywood, 1939: When Tinseltown begins to woo wunderkind Orson Welles, he stashes himself at the Chateau Marmont until he’s ready to make his splashy entrance. But gossip columnist Kathryn Massey knows...

At the dawn of 1942, the dark days of Pearl Harbor still loom over Los Angeles. America is now at war, and posters warn home-front Hollywoodites that loose lips sink ships. Wartime propaganda is the name of the game, and the studios are expected to conjure stories that galvanize the public...

Hollywood history is more than just colorful. It’s dripping with red. As World War II ends, a new boogieman emerges: the Red Menace. When a scandal accuses Tinseltown of being riddled with Communists, MGM writing department head Marcus Adler needs to keep his reputation beyond reproach. Unfortunately...

When the Red Scare ends, paranoia lingers. Can Tinseltown recover to take on television? After an exile from MGM, ousted screenwriter Marcus Adler is looking for his way back into the biz. When he hatches a plan to start over with a disgraced movie star, a Hollywood censor reminds Marcus that...

As America embraces the 1950s, that brash upstart called television is poaching Hollywood’s turf, inch by inch. If the studios don’t do something drastic, they may lose the battle. When screenwriter Marcus Adler fell afoul of the blacklist, Europe offered sanctuary. Hollywood lures him...

Sometimes the end is only the beginning. Kathryn Massey thought a long-forgotten secret was dead and buried—just like the 1950s are about to be—but when a mysterious list circulating Screenland ignites salacious rumors about the gossip columnist, it’s her life that now falls under the...

The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard — Hollywood’s most infamous hotel during Hollywood’s most famous era. 1950s Hollywood saw the beginning of the end of everything: the Eisenhower Years and everything it represented, the restrictive Production Code, Hollywood’s golden-era...

When you live in a city built on shifting sands of myth, it can be hard to know which way is up. Kathryn Massey spends her days spreading rumors and keeping secrets. Losing herself one headline at a time has left Kathryn’s personal identity scattered—and dumps her at the narrow end of the...

The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard — Hollywood’s most infamous hotel during Hollywood’s most famous era. Right before talking pictures slug Tinsel Town in the jaw, a luminous silent screen star converts her private estate into the Garden of Allah Hotel. The lush grounds soon...

The Garden of Allah Hotel on Sunset Boulevard — Hollywood’s most infamous hotel during Hollywood’s most famous era. 1940s Hollywood was a perilous time. First came World War II. Over the lights and music of the Hollywood Canteen hung the fear that some of these brave boys won’t make...