Red Sky Lament

by: Edward Wright

Published by: Orion

Reviewed by Connie Anderson

Trust me, this was a very interesting story.

Set in the 1940-50's America, Red Sky Lament takes place in Hollywood, the hotbed of the "Red" scare, where people were "naming names" about fellow workers in the entertainment industry.

Senator "Parnell" is the book's truth seeker--aided by overzealous helpers and people who advanced or protected themselves by giving up others.

Politics and murder cross paths, way too often. All the while a California-style fire is in the hills...heading this way--just like the threat of communism--thus the Red Sky Lament.

John Ray Horn is a former cowboy star (now unemployed because has been in prison,),his movie sidekick and friend is Mad Crow; and friend Maggie O'Dare is queen of the serials (short movie reels before the main movie).

Laura Lee Paisley is the radio gossip star who drops names on her show that can make or breaks career. These days she's dropping names of people suspected of being Communists or at least sympathizers.

Maggie asks Horn to investigate why her father, Owen Bruder, was murdered. Did it have anything to do with the fact that his name was just announced on Paisley's radio show?

While investigating Bruder's murder, John Ray Horn knew..."somebody wanted him dead and had the means to do it." That about says it all. Horn also, "repeated the name as if it were a piece of food he was trying to dislodge from his teeth."

Who killed Owen, and was it political, or something else? The who and the why are the essence of the book.

This is a real "noir" book, set among that era of blacklists, and long-gone names of Roy Rogers and Gene Autry and other movie trivia are sprinkled among the characters, and even song writer, man of the people, Woody Guthrie appears to sing and comment on the situation.

Not only did the writer give us a good story, he had a lot of very good lines. Being published in England, the American reader has to overlook the different use of punctuation.

Armchair Interviews says: You can feel the fear that maybe "today's the day my name" will be given.