PORTER DOWN HOLLYWOOD MYSTERY NOVELS
Contact: Greg@gregorymank.com
# 3. Metro-Goldwyn-Vampire
(scheduled for May 2026 publication)
In 1934/35, Porter Down is up to his eyeballs in a case he reluctantly accepts on behalf of MGM. Neither he nor the studio brass is happy about this arrangement since his last case for this studio ended with him solving Paul Bern’s death – a death that the studio wanted to remain officially unsolved. Even though the studio was successful in burying the truth of Bern’s death, the fact that Porter is the only person, outside of the studio, who knows what really happened, makes him a dangerous man to have on the payroll (for an account of this 1932 case, see Platinum Widow: Who Killed Jean Harlow’s Husband? book 2 in my Porter Down Hollywood Mystery series).
However, now there is an apparent vampire killer amok during the filming of the Bela Lugosi/Lionel Barrymore/Elizabeth Allan/Lionel Atwill/Carroll Borland classic film Vampires of Prague (which was renamed Mark of the Vampire prior to theatrical release). The body count keeps mounting while events in Porter’s past threaten to derail his attempts to track down the serial killer (or killers). Is there truly a vampire loose in Hollywood, targeting this production, or is there another sinister reason for the murders? The MGM studio knows that Porter Down is the man to save the production and catch the perpetrator(s) so he is once again engaged to handle the case.
Porter Down, prodigal private investigator, takes a perilously deep dive into the most notorious unsolved Hollywood mystery of all time!
This is a wild and wicked time machine ride back to Golden Age Hollywood, and the events surrounding the shocking death of MGM producer Paul Bern, 65 days (and nights) after his marriage to Platinum Blonde Bombshell, Jean Harlow. Was it suicide? Was it murder?
Meet the lovely, vulnerable, MGM star 21-year-old Jean Harlow, her twice-as-old husband Paul Bern, her scheming mother Jean and step-father Marino Bello, Bern's common-law wife Dorothy Millette, MGM Studio Manager Eddie Mannix, and the notorious mobster/Harlow's previous
# 1. Frankenstein's Witch: St. Lizzie, Pray for Us
(BearManor Media, 2022)
# 2. Platinum Widow: Who Killed Jean Harlow's Husband?
(BearManor Media, 2023 - includes an 8-page photo section)
1931. Universal Studios, Hollywood, is placing its hopes for Depression survival on Frankenstein, Mary Shelley’s blasphemous saga of a man who made a Monster. During the shooting, a self-proclaimed witch, who performs a Black Mass in Malibu, sinuously infiltrates the company, seducing Colin Clive, the young, brilliant, alcoholic actor who plays Dr. Frankenstein.
The result: a shocking scandal and murder that Universal desperately hides to protect its epic horror film.
1967. Come the psychedelic “Summer of Love,” a witch is once again amok in Hollywood...with striking similarities to her 1931 predecessor. Someone burns the old Frankenstein set that still was standing on Universal’s back lot. An aged Boris Karloff, who’d played Frankenstein’s Monster, has received a death threat. A horrifying, ritualistic murder occurs. A veteran P.I. named Porter Down, who’d battled the 1931 witch, claims the atrocities are those of the original witch herself...who’s been dead for 36 years.
“I should know,” says the investigator. “I was the one who killed her.”
paramour and protector "Longie" Zwillman. There are cameo appearances from such Big Screen luminaries as Clark Gable, Fredric March, Lionel Atwill, Joan Crawford, Louis B. Mayer, and Irving Thalberg. Meet also a fictional deadly female pornographer/blackmailer, a spunky female investigator who assists Porter Down in his investigations, and many other fictional characters who inhabit the fringes of the real-life tragedy.
This is a fictional – but credible – solution to Bern's demise, based on the true events of 91-years-ago. Hollywood’s Golden Age lives again with a vengeance in this manic mix of fact and fiction!
