SAVING SUSY SWEETCHILD

The moral compass of an English expatriate will not let her ignore some of Hollywood’s more sordid exploits.

After losing her husband, family, and fortune to World War I, Emma Blackstone has been reduced to working as a dogsbody when she’s rescued by her American sister-in-law, Kitty Flint. Kitty, aka Camille de la Rose, is a lovely but terrible actress of the silent screen whose affair with the studio head allows her to keep churning out movies. Emma, who’s ignored all sorts of illegal and morally repugnant activity, finds that she can’t ignore the treatment of child star Little Susy Sweetchild on the set of Kitty’s latest film. Susy provides financial support for her beautiful but untalented actress mother, Selina Sutton, who’s unconcerned when her daughter is almost trampled by a horse while shooting a scene. Susy bravely keeps working with only her cat, Mr Gray, to help calm her fears. Emma, who serves as chaperone, Pekingese wrangler, and occasional scriptwriter, has also just accepted a part-time job sorting out the paperwork left behind by a UCLA professor who died, possibly by murder, in his office. When Susy and her mother are kidnapped, Emma is appalled by the studio’s attempts to avoid paying the ransom. Susy’s father is a drunk and her grandfather and aunts are all trying to get custody of her in order to live off her considerable earnings, which her mother spends entirely on herself. With help from her lover, cameraman Zal Rokatansky, Emma embarks on a search for Susy, whom she fears no one cares about enough to rescue from what may be an inside job gone wrong.

Exciting adventures and thorny mysteries gain gravitas from pointed social commentary.