Edna Ferber travels to Hollywood to lend her support to her dear friend Max who’s been blacklisted as a communist. Max has just finished working on the music for the latest movie version of Showboat featuring Ava Gardner. Max has been an integral part of the music for Showboat beginning with the first Broadway version.
Her beloved Max has been murdered.

MAKE BELIEVE mines the rich talent of the Algonquin Round Table. With such wit and creative genius it’s no surprise the Vicious Circle has become so inspirational. Wit wise I wouldn’t have been up to hanging out with any of the Algonquin Round Table members nor am I sure I would have even liked them from what I’ve read; but it sure is fun joining their fictional counterparts while they solve mysteries.

In MAKE BELIEVE Edna Ferber, novelist, short story author and playwright, is our protagonist. However this isn’t an “in her prime” Edna, but what might be considered an elderly Edna. Don’t let the white hair fool you. Edna is still blunt and acerbic, speaking her mind freely and often, irregardless of who she’s talking about or to. This excerpt encapsulates Edna’s attitude beautifully.

“What Show Boat creator visiting on the coast to add her fire power in support of a local Commie is now planning his funeral?” I stared at the abrupt, cruel, line. Furious, I paced my hotel suite. When I passed an inconvenient mirror, I spied a maddened old woman, her permed white curls in disarray. Worse, it was the face of a woman not used to being stunned---and certainly not bested by lesser forms of humanity.
And Hedda Hopper filled that bottom-feeder niche so perfectly. Of course, I hadn’t read the silly gossip item in the morning paper because, frankly, I valued the English language and, as well, the innate decency of man. I came upon the scurrilous item by chance.

Hollywood in the 50’s with the Hollywood Ten and McCarthyism is the backdrop. Edna’s left coast trip to visit her beleaguered friend Max turns tragic as he’s murdered shortly after her arrival.
One of my favorite aspects of MAKE BELIEVE is the character descriptions. For example, these are some of Edna’s thoughts on Desmond Peake, Metro liaison:

A tall string bean of a man, all joint and angle, pale worm white skin, splotchy with patches of sickly red. Large, flinty gray eyes, magnified behind enormous black-framed eyeglasses which replaced the sunglasses as he slid into the seat next to me. A thin Clark Gable mustache incongruously plastered to his weak upper lip gave his Ichabod Crane physiognomy a rarefied comic touch. But there was nothing funny about Desmond Peake. Officious, Metro’s gatekeeper for scandal and misdeed. Or so Max had warned me.

Doesn’t that evoke a vivid image? Edna’s first meeting with Ava Gardner is equally rich in its portrayal but much longer and one of my favorite scenes. I couldn’t help but like Ava while Frank Sinatra is quite the paradox. Characters, both real and fictional sprang to life.
Even with the Communist witch hunts this was a magical time in Hollywood with stars who became legendary and larger than life. Hollywood, as depicted in MAKE BELIEVE, is tawdry and tarnished, only appearing glamorous from a distance. MAKE BELIEVE focuses on the superficiality, cruelty, desperation and desolation hidden by the thin veneer of glamour and wealth.
I read slowly, not wanting to miss a single nuance. The mix of fictional and factual characters and events was so well done it was easy to believe this had, in fact, happened. Well done. I actually figured out “who dunnit” but added an extra person to the mix.

Even though this is the third in Ed Ifkovic’s Edna Ferber mystery series and I hadn’t read the first two I never felt lost or that something was missing. MAKE BELIEVE is a must read for mystery lovers who enjoy an historical mystery that seamlessly blends reality and fiction. I’ll be adding the two previous titles to my TBR mountain.

4 stars
Reviewed by IvyD for Manic Readers ( )