The Silver Face (A John Ray Horn Thriller) [Paperback]

Edward Wright (Author)

Book Description

Series: A John Ray Horn Thriller | Publication Date: April 1, 2007

(This is the U.K. edition of the novel published in the U.S. under the title "While I Disappear," winner of the Shamus Award and the Southern California Booksellers' Association award for best mystery)

One rain-soaked evening, John Ray Horn runs into an old flame. Rose Galen played the female lead in his second movie. Young, beautiful and improbably talented for her B-movie surroundings, she had a shining quality to her. Now, years later, Rose is a shattered creature, drink-sodden and heavy with sadness. Something happened to her years ago, before Horn first knew her, something so terrible that it would eventually leave her broken. Hoping to uncover her long-held secret, Horn goes to visit Rose at her shabby rooming house. He finds her strangled to death.

Aware of a debt to her that he never fully acknowledged, he sets out to find her killer, aided by Joseph Mad Crow, Horn's onetime Indian co-star who is now his employer. He encounters figures from Rose's past--the lawyer with a bootlegging background and a lethal bodyguard; the lusty, larger-than-life actress with a capacity for settling scores; and the ex-Shakespearean actor with a faded career and a crumbling mansion.

To unmask Rose's killer, Horn must first determine what happened to her so long ago. His search takes him back into the Hollywood of the 1920s, the era of the silent film, and a wild party attended by both movie celebrities and racketeers. On that night, a terrible act left a young woman dead and several people guarding a secret that would only begin to unravel after Rose Galen took her last tortured breath.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This haunting novel. . . confirms Wright's reputation as a significant talent.

--SUNDAY TIMES of London

Deeply satisfying stuff: exciting, intelligent and tender where it most matters.

--LITERARY REVIEW, London

'Horn and Mad Crow ... are one of the finest double acts of crime fiction anywhere. The period is brilliantly captured, the characters are complex, and the author combines pace, surprises, humour and emotion with a wonderful literary style.' HUDDERSFIELD DAILY EXAMINER

From the Author

JOHN RAY HORN'S LOS ANGELES

John Ray Horn, the character I've developed over the course of three novels, is an ex-cowboy actor who must deal with matters of life and death against the backdrop of Los Angeles in the 1940s. Several things drew me to him and his locale:

As a youngster growing up in Arkansas, I went to the Saturday afternoon matinees and was thrilled by the simple, unsophisticated heroism of the cowboy movies. Today I'm intrigued by the idea of a man who once portrayed a hero on the screen but who is now an outcast and is forced to compare himself every day with his old image.

Although I've chosen to live in the City of Angels, I'm sometimes overwhelmed by its size and pace. I look back with affection at the Los Angeles I never knew -- the young city with few tall buildings, its wide-open spaces occupied only by citrus and nut groves and bean fields, a city only dimly aware of its coming greatness.

Part of this nostalgia, of course, is fed by Hollywood itself. Many old black-and-white B-movies -- made by studios that couldn't afford expensive sets -- contain scenes shot on the streets of the real Los Angeles. Look at that city, with its great open stretches, streets running alongside endless rows of fruit trees, and you'll know that L.A. will never again look so young and raw or have so much room to breathe.

Then there's the artificial L.A., also served up by the movies. Anyone who's watched Howard Hawks' The Big Sleep, with that scene of the cottage up in Laurel Canyon and a torrential rain drenching Bogart, his car, and his trench coat, might be forgiven for thinking that it rains a lot in L.A. I thought so -- until I moved here. But this interplay between myth and reality is part of what's compelling about this town. And somewhere near that intersection, I've tried to create my own L.A., with sunshine and shadow, lemon groves and road houses, hustlers and decent people, attempts at human contact amid loneliness.

Most of my characters are fictitious. But in "The Silver Face" (published in the U.S. as "While I Disappear"), the character of Rose is based partly on Louise Brooks, the iconic silent screen actress whose career flamed out early after a few landmark films and whose later years were spent largely in obscurity. As in this novel, her final film role, in the 1930s, was in a forgettable B-movie western. Rose played opposite John Ray Horn. Louise Brooks' co-star was the very young John Wayne.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Orion Publishing (April 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752864513
• ISBN-13: 978-0752864518
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,843,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Edward Wright grew up in Arkansas and went to school in Tennessee and Illinois. He has been an officer in the U.S. Navy and an editor at the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. His noir-flavored mysteries featuring John Ray Horn -- "Clea's Moon," "While I Disappear" (U.K. title: "The Silver Face"), and "Red Sky Lament" -- set in Los Angeles during the 1940s, have won the Shamus Award in the U.S. and the Debut Dagger and Ellis Peters Historical Crime Award in the U.K. His first non-series book, "Damnation Falls," a contemporary mystery-thriller set in small-town Tennessee, won the Barry Award. His latest novel, "From Blood," was named one of the best mysteries of the year by the Financial Times of London, and a U.S. edition is due in 2012. Although now a Californian, he retains a Southerner's love of barbecue and bluegrass music. He and his wife, Cathy, live in the Los Angeles area. www.edwardwrightbooks.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars same book, different title, January 21, 2008

By 

E. Harwood (Lewiston, Maine United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Silver Face (A John Ray Horn Thriller) (Paperback)

Though it notes it at one point on the purchase page, it is worth emphasizing that The Silver Face appeared in hardback with a different title, When I Disappear. The identical book is, therefore, appearing under two different titles on the Amazon site, and that cannot help but be confusing. Please do not assume, as I did, that The Silver Face is a recent addition to the fine John Horn series. That said, it is a fine mystery, and this series has an excellent concept.