This image is the cover for the book Blue Movie Murders

Blue Movie Murders

A killing shocks the erotic film underworld in a mystery featuring Mike McCall, the political troubleshooter introduced in The Campus Murders.

The film is called The Wild Nymph, and it may be the finest pornographic movie ever made. A relic of the 1950s, when erotic cinema was more artistic than smutty, it was filmed on a shoestring budget by the enigmatic genius Sol Dahlman. But 20 years later, the film has been forgotten and Dahlman has become a recluse. Finding him will be a deadly proposition.

A Hollywood producer comes to the state capital in search of Dahlman, hoping to capitalize on pornography’s growing mainstream acceptance. He meets Mike McCall, the governor’s top troubleshooter, whose only interest in pornography is in keeping women’s lib protestors from picketing the theaters. When Dahlman is found dead, it falls to McCall to stop the bloodshed. Sex can be controversial, but murder is always taboo.

Ellery Queen

Ellery Queen was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay (1905–1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905–1971), as well as the name of their most famous detective. Born in Brooklyn, they spent forty-two years writing, editing, and anthologizing under the name, gaining a reputation as the foremost American authors of the Golden Age “fair play” mystery. Although eventually famous on television and radio, Queen’s first appearance came in 1928, when the cousins won a mystery-writing contest with the book that would eventually be published as The Roman Hat Mystery. Their character was an amateur detective who uses his spare time to assist his police inspector uncle in solving baffling crimes. Besides writing the Queen novels, Dannay and Lee cofounded Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, one of the most influential crime publications of all time. Although Dannay outlived his cousin by nine years, he retired Queen upon Lee’s death.

Open Road Integrated Media