The Inheritance of Death: A comedy mystery: Volume 1 - Tapa blanda

Jeff Young a Hollywood agent, age forty, for the past seventeen years has been living in Hollywood. He enjoyed tap dancing lessons in the seventies as did many young people at that time. It was the end of the Fred Astaire era and he like others thought they could dance their way to fame and success, but it didn’t happen. He then decided he might be able to help other young people with their careers. He ended up a typical Hollywood agent with little success. Jeff’s inherits his Uncle’s funeral home which includes the residence. It seems like a great deal, but there’s a catch. In order to inherit a tidy sum and the lucrative income of the business he must manage the funeral home for one year, or he gets nothing. At first Jeff rejects the inheritance since it provokes bad memories of his father’s death. When his newest client, a young teen star, overdoses during a party in his office he jumps on the offer, broke and afraid of being linked to her death. Jeff starts his new venture in managing the mortuary completely unprepared. From anonymous tips of necrophilia among his staff to attempts on his life, trafficking in the dead turns out to be trickier than he imagined. A prime suspect, Emmet Royce, his assistant, burned to discover he did not inherit the funeral home, takes out his anger on Jeff. During Jeff’s adventures in the mortuary he meets Kate, an attractive widow. Together they attempt to figure out who is trying to murder Jeff and whether there’s any truth to the necrophilia. Jeff must fend off murder and rescue a missing corpse.

My interest in mystery started when I was the Art Director on the film, Rosemary’s Baby. I learned personally from Roman Polanski, the director, the artistry of the unknown. In several of the forty-five films I have art directed, some of them have been mysteries and I have tried to enhance the scenes with my ideas. I intend to dedicate my mystery novel to Roman Polanski. It might seem presumptuous that while being an artist/designer most of my life, I have endeavored to write a novel. Not so, I learned. There is a long list writers who were considerable artists such as: Max Beerbohm, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, Lewis Carol, Victor Hugo, Thomas Hardy, Robert Lewis Stevenson, to name a few.