Robert Westbrook

I read this book when it was first released, then only for Kindle, by the author. I'm pleased to see it now published in paperback and look forward to the imminent release of the second book.

"The Torch Singer" is Robert Westbrook's Hollywood noir thriller series, with Book One, "An Overnight Sensation" the first of a trilogy centred on the life and death of B-singer and actress Sonya Saint-Amant.

Skilfully related from the outset, "An Overnight Sensation" opens with Sonya Saint-Amant's death show more on St Valentine's night 1956 in a Beverly Hills House - the discovery of her body by her 12-year-old son Jonno, naked on her bed in blood stained sheets.

Her lover, Hollywood movie director Max McCormick is dead beside her shot in the head, and in the room, another lover, disgraced Congressman Fred Landson is sitting on a chair holding a gun.

After a short interchange with Jonno, Landson blows his own brains out and Jonno flees the horrific scene, taking his mother's Cadillac, racing along the Pacific Coast Highway almost reaching Santa Barbara before he is pulled over, a twelve year old in pajamas doing eighty miles an hour in the driving rain on the wrong side of the road.

So far, so Hollywood Noir - but by the end of the prologue Westbrook hints that Jonno's version of events might not be accurate -- and throughout the book and one assumes the series, as the "Daily Mail" reviewer stated above, nothing is ever going to be quite what it seems.

Indeed this book has more plot twists than there are bends on the Mulholland Highway and all the better for that.

Westbrook is a magnificent writer who, from his biography, knows this period of Hollywood from personal experience -- and one suspects that there is a lot of his childhood invested in Jonno. The book proceeds to intertwine Jonno's "Awful Hollywood Childhood" - written somewhat in the style of a Hollywood memoir - with his mother's dogged attempt to get there.

And what a journey. Chapter One commences with yet another slaughter, this time by Nazis in the Krakow Opera House and an aftermath where the young (then) Sonja Wojtkiewicz sees her mother strung up and hanged by German soldiers from a lamppost in the street. Sonja flees Poland escaping with the help of a gypsy friend of her mother and partisans and washes up as many refugees did in London, but determined to get to America - with musicals in New York, not films in Los Angeles being her original aim.

That involves a transit on a troop-ship, the Mauretania, which is where for scholarly students of writing, Westbrook sets up the core of the subsequent plot. For the rest of us we can sit back end enjoy the journey and interactions, eloquently delivered with glorious attention to detail and interspersed with some adventure and a little dry humor on the way.

As is clear from the outset Sonja/Sonya does make it to Hollywood, delivered and repackaged as the sultry sex siren, but the book has a story thread which persists, tying knots for the reader to unravel as Sonya's life journey continues from the ingenue in Poland, through events on Mauretania to the deaths on Valentine's Night in the Beverly Hills.

The book completes with a sort of ending - and also a beginning - as Westbrook teases the reader with the opening beat of book two - yet another cliffhanger - meaning I am aching to get hold of the follow-up as was no doubt the intention. As with all successful Hollywood franchises the art is to "keep them wanting more" and Westbrook seems to have it fully developed. I am aching to settle down with book two.

This book deserves all the success it will no doubt gain. I read many books and yet this is close to unique in recent times - a superbly written thriller delivered on an epic scale and a thoroughly enjoyable read. show less

Mr. Westbrook gives an up close an personal look at F. Scott Fitzgerald's last years. Using the diaries of his mother, Shelia Graham, Mr. Westbrook reveals the true lifestyle of Fitzgerald in Hollywood in the 1930's. After this book you will wonder how Fitzgerald could complete and article must less a book. You do discover how his imagination ran wild with all of the events around him and where he orginated his story lines. Fitzgerald wrote fiction that upon close examination was about the show more people that surrounded him. It was an enjoyable read that interrupted my research on Scott and Zelda. show less

Warrior Circle is a long story that involves a lot of very unhappy, vengeful, mean spirited people part of a men's group. It is not the kind of book that feels happy at the end. It is not an enjoyable read. Four stars were awarded to this book.

This is a novel that was written based on the screenplay. I love the acters, and the book has a few pages of photos from the movie.

The book was written as though you were right there. It is very believeable and you experience it.

It was suspenseful and engaging. I couldn't wait to rent the movie, which follows along with the book (or visa versa).