Death of a Blue Movie Star [Paperback]

Jeffery Deaver (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0340922826
• ISBN-13: 978-0340922828
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,144,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jeffery Deaver was born outside of Chicago in 1950. His father was an advertising copywriter and his mother was a homemaker. He has one younger sister who writes novels for teenagers ' Julie Reece Deaver.

Deaver wrote his first book ' which consisted of two entire chapters ' when he was eleven, and he's been writing ever since. An award-winning poet and journalist, he has also written and performed his own songs around the country. After receiving a Bachelor of Journalism degree from the University of Missouri, Deaver worked as a magazine writer, then, to gain the background needed to become a legal correspondent for The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, he enrolled at Fordham Law School. After graduation he decided to practice law for a time and worked for several years as an attorney for a large Wall Street firm. It was during his long commute to and from the office that he began writing the type of fiction he enjoyed reading: suspense novels. In 1990 he started to write full time.

The author of twenty-two novels, Deaver has been nominated for six Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony award, a Gumshoe Award, and is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Reader's Award for Best Short Story of the Year. In 2001, he won the W.H. Smith Thumping Good Read Award for his Lincoln Rhyme novel The Empty Chair. In 2004, he was awarded the Crime Writers Association of Great Britain's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for Garden Of Beasts and the Short Story Dagger for "The Weekender." Translated into 35 languages, his novels have appeared on a number of bestseller lists around the world, including the New York Times, the London Times and the Los Angeles Times. The Bone Collector was a feature release from Universal Pictures, starring Denzel Washington as Lincoln Rhyme. A Maiden's Grave was made into an HBO film retitled Dead Silence, starring James Garner and Marlee Matlin.

Jeff has also released two collections of his short stories, called Twisted and More Twisted.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 2nd in Rune series is a winner!, November 8, 2000

By 

P. Legerski (Corona, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

This is the second of the Deaver reissues in the "Rune" series. A third, HARD NEWS, is set to be released soon. That said Deaver delivers another brilliant soft mystery.

Rune is once again in the middle of trouble! This time she is walking sown the street when a bomb goes off in a porno theatre, nearly killing her. Our heroine can't pass up a chance to find out what is going on so she eavesdrops and finds out a cult, the Sword of Jesus, is claiming responsibility and warning of six other bombings.

Rune befriends the lead cop and a porno actress and together they try and solve why these bombings are taking place and who is doing them. Deaver's twists and turns are in full force here.

The ending alone is worth the price of the book...talk about a shocker. Waiting anxiously for HARD NEWS and any other Deaver reissues.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars GOES OUT WITH A BANG, November 19, 2000

By 

Gerard T. McGuire - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

DEATH OF A BLUE MOVIE STAR is a follow up to MANHATTAN IS MY BEAT, both books featuring the character of Rune, an aspiring film maker with a nose for trouble. This time around Rune is working for an agency that makes bad commercials and good documentaries. While out and about she witnesses a bombing of a pornography theatre and decides to use footage of the scene as a springboard for her first ever documentary. Her look into the life of a porn star takes a twist when the subject of her film is killed in a subsequent explosion that appears to be one in a series initiated by religious zealots. Rune becomes determined to find the killer and along the way she strikes a romance with the lead cop, makes a film, and gets herself caught right smack in the middle of all the killing.

In classic Deaver fashion there are some dizzying plot flips that keep you guessing from page to page. However Rune is no Lincoln Rhyme and the weakness of her character curses the book as a whole. She is naive and whimsical to say the least and thus unbelievable. The reader has to believe that she would have been killed just as a result of the law of averages. As a character, her survival skills are questionable at best.

The book starts off great but lags through the middle chapters. The pockets of action and intrigue are not enough to make up for lulls. However the book ends spectacularly and therefore the novel ends up being worth the read. It is a better than average suspense book but it is also not the best of Deaver. Don't expect the same chills you got in DEVILS TEARDROP, COFFIN DANCER, OR THE LESSONS OF HER DEATH. Overall a solid three star read.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rune returns, April 23, 2001

By 

Cody Menzies - See all my reviews

This review is from: Death of a Blue Movie Star (Rune Trilogy) (Mass Market Paperback)

With this, the second novel to feature the bizarre Rune, Deaver once again tempers his hard-edge tale with Rune's usual wierdness and inexperience in the world of crime fighting.

This time, Rune becomes obsessed with a porn star whose murder she witnessed. Armed with a camera and her quirky attitude, Rune dives into the porn industry and ferrets out clues and suspects ... and once again puts her life in mortal danger.

Once again Deaver delivers a compulsively readable novel, but the twists in this one are more guessible than usual, especially the final (whichs shows Rune is kinder to certain people than they deserve) and next to no mention is made of the murders she experienced in the first book. Still, pretty good.