Time to celebrate a milestone.
Design for Dying was published on April 19, 2016. Meaning this week marks ten years of Lillian Frost and Edith Head, a fact we take in with no small degree of astonishment. It’s been a wonderful, wild ride, one we certainly hope isn’t over yet.
The adventure began well before that, going back to 2013 when an early draft of Design won the William F. Deeck Malice Domestic Grant for Unpublished Writers. That warm welcome from the mystery community convinced us that, in having Edith Head solve crimes in the Hollywood of the 1930s and ‘40s, we might have a good idea on our hands.
Design was launched at Malice Domestic in 2016, and we were fortunate enough to be sent on tour to promote it. Our constant companions on the road were a collection of Edith Head paper dolls from a book by Tom Tierney, complete with multiple wardrobe changes. These miniature models absorbed a lot of wear and tear, but they held up like troupers and served as fantastic conversation starters.
We took plenty of research trips, getting a behind-the-scenes tour of Edith’s domain at Paramount Pictures thanks to the studio’s archivists, reading Edith’s personal papers—while sitting at her kitchen table—at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Margaret Herrick Library, riding the rails as Lillian and Edith would have up to Hearst Castle.
So many wonderful things happened as a result of that first book. We ended up on NPR’s summer reading list and were able to live out a longtime dream of introducing films on Turner Classic Movies alongside our friend Eddie Muller on Noir Alley.
Not everything was smooth sailing, but there continued to be surprises. All five books were optioned by a major streaming service and one of the biggest producers in Hollywood—you’d recognize both names—and Vince was hired to work on the TV series. (This is the top-secret project we’ve alluded to in the past.) Given the usual show business vagaries, it isn’t moving forward at the moment, but who knows what the future holds? And we’re planning to come out of our hiatus with a new mystery for Lillian and Edith to solve in 1941. Plus, don’t forget Vince’s movie-themed cocktail book A Hell of a Drink, which he’s writing with bartender Chris Elford, to be published by Sasquatch Books next year.
In the meantime, we’re raising a glass to a decade we never saw coming, and to everyone who helped us along the way. First on that list are our readers. You have our deepest thanks. Here’s to further fun and games in full fashion finery.
