Final Curtain

Ifkovic's fifth Edna Ferber mystery (after 2013's Downtown Strut) provides a splendid view of the highbrow theater culture of another era. In the summer of 1940, Ferber has chosen an abandoned movie theater in Maplewood, N.J., as the stage for her acting debut. She is set to play the lead role in The Royal Family, a widely celebrated play she cowrote with George S. Kaufman, a similarly eminent Broadway figure now signed on to direct the upcoming week of performances. While at first Edna believes her lack of stage experience presents the greatest of her concerns, she soon meets Evan Street, an astonishingly handsome understudy who carries himself like a Hollywood star--much to her dismay. Evan's frequent quarrels with crew members and unwelcome appearances are troublesome enough, yet the plot truly thickens when someone fatally shoots Evan. While George can't take anything--including this unexplained homicide--seriously, the redoubtable Edna refuses to let the case go unsolved in this rewarding installment.--Publishers Weekly A fictional episode in the life of novelist/playwright Edna Ferber brings the writer, now a middle-aged spinster, to New Jersey to champion justice and young love. Although Edna enjoyed acclaim as the co-author of The Royal Family, she's always dreamed of acting in it. Now she has a chance to play the matriarch in a one-week production her co-author, George S. Kaufmann, is directing in a theater in suburban New Jersey. It's 1940, and the rapidly changing events in Europe seem to have left peaceful Maplewood untouched. As Edna settles in and enjoys lemon phosphate and tuna casserole at the Full Moon Cafe, she meets some of the lesser members of the cast, including Evan Street, a dazzlingly handsome young man who's understudying one of the leads at the request of his mother, a friend of the producer's. But as rehearsals begin, Evan makes himself more and more unpopular, especially with stage manager Dakota, whose mother, Clorinda Roberts Tyler, is a successful evangelist in Maplewood. Dak, Clorinda's designated heir, is engaged to one of his mother's disciples, although he seems more attached to his stage work and to Nadine Novack, a young actress who knew both him and Evan in Hollywood. The presence of a couple of Nazi sympathizers isn't the first hint of trouble in Maplewood, but it's certainly one of the more disturbing elements--especially when one of the cast members is found shot to death. Edna, increasingly convinced that the seeds of the murder were planted years ago in Hollywood, is determined to find the facts, whatever the risk. In Ifkovic's latest fictionalization of the adventures of Edna Ferber (Downtown Strut, 2013, etc.), the clever plot and colorful original characters are very welcome, though the leisurely pace and the attempts to emulate Kaufmann's and Ferber's wit fall flat.--Kirkus Reviews Ifkovic's latest Edna Ferber mystery is set in 1940 (regular readers will know the author likes to jump around, chronologically). A theater in New Jersey is staging a production of The Royal Family, a play Ferber cowrote nearly 15 years earlier with the acclaimed playwright George S. Kaufman. Pulitzerwinning author and playwright Ferber, who's always wanted to try her hand at acting, is playing one of the leads. To make matters even more interesting, Kaufman is directing. Ferber is not too fond, though, of one of the young male actors, an understudy to another of the leads--even so, she's hardly happy when the man is murdered. The story unfolds Agatha Christie-style, with an assortment of likely suspects (including a Nazi sympathizer--this is 1940, remember), but it's best if one thinks of the novel as a Christie story written by, say, someone of Ferber's, or indeed Kaufman's, witty sensibilities. This is the fifth Ferber mystery, and she continues to be one of the more interesting of the historical figures who have found new life as fictional sleuths.--Booklist