Books like A Cast of Killers by Sidney Kirkpatrick

On February 1, 1922, silent‑film director William Desmond Taylor was shot dead in his Los Angeles bungalow, sparking rumors of strange activity at the scene. Despite extensive police work, the case never concluded, leaving Hollywood with a decades‑long mystery. In 1967, director King Vidor, whose career had been haunted by the unsolved crime, secretly pursued his own investigation, using his insider knowledge of studios and stars to identify the killer. Vidor’s explosive findings were never released, and after his death in 1982, biographer Sidney D. Kirkpatrick gained access to the evidence. Kirkpatrick reconstructs the full story, revealing a cast of suspects，包括 Mabel Normand, Mary Miles Minter, her mother Charlotte Shelby, Taylor’s homosexual houseman, and a secretary who resembled his elusive brother. The book presents a true‑crime narrative enriched with historical detail and cinematic context, finally telling the long‑suppressed tale in vivid, shocking detail.

First publish date: 1986