The Kept Girl

Title: The Kept Girl

Author: Kim Cooper

Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Historical

Short synopsis: A fact-based mystery set in 1929 Los Angeles, starring the young Raymond Chandler, his loyal secretary, and the idealistic cop who is a likely model for the mature Chandler's greatest creation, private detective Philip Marlowe.

Publication: February 2014 (deluxe Subscriber's Edition may be ordered through 12/25/13)

Publisher: Esotouric Ink

Website: http://www.thekeptgirl.com

Advance Praise:

"A deeply researched and compulsively readable crime novel." ( Denise Hamilton , author of Damage Control  and editor of the Edgar Award-winning anthology Los Angeles Noir) ...  "Kim Cooper is the perfect Virgil to 1929 Los Angeles… Her knowledge of the city that was is unparalleled, her imagination unnerving. Aficionados of noir Los Angeles will read The Kept Girl  with fascination and with growing horror." ( John Buntin , author of L.A. Noir )... "A delightful addition to this city's literature. The effortlessness with which it borrows against the Chandler tradition while… retaining its unique intelligence and slyly contemporary flavor is just plain stunning." ( Matthew Specktor , author of American Dream Machine )... "Holy cats, this woman can write! The Kept Girl  evokes 1920s Los Angeles in general and especially Raymond Chandler magnificently, without ever stooping to mere ventriloquism. It abounds in grace notes, snappy character sketches and, yes, similes that keep their dignity even in the presence of the master.... Like Chandler, she writes rings around most of what New York is turning out." ( David Kipen , editor of The WPA Guide to Los Angeles )

Synopsis: 

Los Angeles, 1929: a glittering metropolis on the crest of an epic crash. A mysterious prophetess and her alluring daughter have relieved an oil tycoon's nephew of his fortune. But the kid won't talk. To find the money, the old man calls on a trusted executive, Raymond Chandler, who in turn enlists the aid of his devoted secretary/mistress, Muriel Fischer, and their idealistic patrolman friend Tom James. 

Soon the nephew is revealed as a high-ranking member of a murderous cult of angel worshippers, and the trio plunges into an investigation that sends them careening across Southern California, from sinister sanitariums to roadside burger stands, decaying Bunker Hill mansions to sparkling cocktail parties, taxi dance halls to the morgue, all in search of the secretive Great Eleven. But when Muriel goes undercover to infiltrate the group's rural lair, she comes face to face with disturbing truths that threaten to spoil everything, not just for the cult's members, but for herself as well.

A work of fiction inspired by actual events and featuring the real-life cop who is a likely model for the mature Chandler's greatest creation, private eye Philip Marlowe, Kim Cooper's "The Kept Girl" exposes a mystery so horrifying, it could only be true.

About the author: 

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project , the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric's popular Los Angeles crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. Her books include Fall in Love For Life (Chronicle), Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth (Feral House), Lost in the Grooves (Routledge) and an oral history of the cult band Neutral Milk Hotel (Bloomsbury/Continuum). The Kept Girl is her first novel.