George Baxt: The Humphrey Bogart Murder Case (USA 1995)

From the Publisher:
Dashiell Hammett's story of The Maltese Falcon comes to life in the witty tenth instalment of George Baxt's popular celebrity mystery series. It's 1941, and in between battles with his third wife, Mayo Methot, Humphrey Bogart is preparing to star with friends Mary Astor and Peter Lorre in what will become one of the jewels of his career. But filming is interrupted before it begins when the Bogarts' own house is ransacked.

All clues indicate that someone is looking for a priceless cornucopia filled with jewels dating from the time of Marco Polo that was once in the possession of Mayo's sea captain father. Similarities to The Maltese Falcon draw Dashiell Hammett and his acerbic lady Lillian Heilman into the chase, and for a while it seems that everyone, from the washed-up silent film actress Karen Barrett to the greyest screen vamp of the twenties Theda Bara, to studio mogul Sam Goldwyn, has had his or her hands on the cornucopia.

But then a murder is discovered, and another, and a third. Who wants the prize badly enough to kill for it? A bossy Italian contessa or her disgruntled lover? The proprietor of an antique shop or his bewigged 'daughter' Nell? The assistant to Hollywood's trendiest interior designer? Samuel Goldwyn??

Once again Detective Herb Villon, his girlfriend, gossip columnist Hazel Dickson, and his assistant Jim Mallory star alongside the real celebrities in a glamorous story of murder mayhem, and 'such stuff as dreams are made on.'

George Baxt: The Humphrey Bogart Murder Case. St. Martin's Press, ISBN: 0312118287 (April, 1995), 200 p., $18.95.