Rachel West and the Fallen Starlet

Celebrity gossip can cut to the quick, but when it turns deadly it’s up to an aspiring reporter and her quirky neighbors to close the case in the first of a witty and nostalgic new mystery series.

Baby doll top, gladiator sandals, and fully loaded iPod at the ready—it’s 2008 in Los Angeles, and Rachel West is a little less starry-eyed than your average ingenue. There’s never been a better time to be an entertainment journalist, but the road to writing glossy profiles starts with copyediting a celeb gossip rag. Hey, it pays her bills. Most of them, at least.

Everything changes when Rachel befriends Molly Byrne—former child star and current tabloid fave due to her drunken escapades and rotating cast of boyfriends—in a nightclub bathroom.

When Molly is found dead, all of Hollywood accepts her death as an overdose. But Rachel knows for a fact her friend was clean, so when Molly’s favorite paparazzo, Casper, tells her he thinks Molly was murdered, she believes him.

With the help of a ragtag group of residents from her apartment building, a handsome detective, and her trusty flip phone, Rachel must solve the mystery of Molly’s death before she’s written off for good. View Less