Playing Dead

Lindsay Maracotta

4/11/2003

Lucy Freers takes a video tape of her popular animation character to a television network. They are considering making a weekly series starring Amerinda. After the character shows her stuff, the tape changes. Shocked, the roomful of people watch a piece of film showing a probable movie or play audition with a child pushing a woman down the stairs and killing her. The grisly end of the scene puts an end to Lucy's weekly series hopes.

Instead, she finds herself trying to find out when the strange episode happened, who was killed, and who was the child her pushed her. Did this have anything to do with Brandon McKenna's death? Brandon had been part of Lucy's past, and now is her family's nanny. Only at the beginning of the book Brandon is killed in a robbery while in the Freers' car. Or was it really a robbery?

Her husband Kit, a popular movie producer, takes their daughter Chloe to Aspen skiing to help her cope with her sorrow over Brandon. Since Lucy is pregant and can't ski, she stays behind in their Hollywood home. So she starts investigating. Chloe's school is the perfect place to meet child actors. Perhaps she can find a clue there as she volunteers.

In this light, humorous mystery novel, the dog eat dog world of child actors is examined. We not only meet the jaded, yet innocent looking children, but the stage parents, the audition calls, and the cut throat competitiveness of the group. Children only have a few good years in the acting field before they grow up. Very few of them go on to have successful adult acting careers. (As Lucy says, Jodie Foster and Ron Howard are the exceptions.)

It also is a good mystery. There is a varied cast of suspects. Maracotta draws the childrens' characters well whether it is the innocent/jaded nine-year-old girl with a pushy mother or the snot-nosed, filthy mouthed ten-year-old boy who has made zillions for the movie industry. This was a perfect book to read while waiting for a family member to have surgery. It is involved enough to help you ignore your surroundings, but not very deep, so it is easy to stop when the nurse or doctor comes with new. I have enjoyed this series, and hope Maracotta will bring out another one. This one, published in 1999, is the last for now.

You can find more about this book at .

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