proves difficult, since Maxwell is cantankerous and fully capable of putting on a show. He’s also determined to find out the actual cause of his wife’s death decades earlier.

The Salvation of Henry Maxwell has two other mysteries besides how Lillian actually died. Maxwell’s last film, Lady Julia’s Sarcophagus, was never completed, and almost all copies of the film seem to have disappeared. David Grovene, a college professor who specializes in collectible film stock, tries to find the last remaining copy after the collector he was scheduled to meet was apparently murdered. Not only is the physical film and its ending a mystery, but the source novel is long out of print and also hard to find. The story’s final mystery is less esoteric and far grislier. Somebody revisits the filming locations for some of Maxwell’s movies and re-enacting gruesome murders from those films with live victims.

At times, the author juggles multiple storylines in The Salvation of Henry Maxwell, but the book is easy to follow. Further, the author ties all the loose ends together by the end of the book. The various storylines are related, but not in the ways most readers will guess. The ending is a bit ambiguous, with the possibility of some supernatural elements. Regardless of whether the book has a touch of the paranormal, it’s got many creepy sequences. Characters spend a lot of time finding their way in the dark on stairways and tunnels beneath the Maxwell castle and in other tunnels under the streets of Los Angeles through the abandoned subway system. Not surprisingly, for a book about vintage B-movie cinema, “The Salvation of Henry Maxwell” could make a great movie.  Beyond all the mystery elements, this book is a character study of an older man who is, in many ways, still haunted by the past. The police believe Maxwell may have committed one or more murders, and the extent, if any, of his guilt is one of the book’s more interesting puzzles. At times, his behavior makes little sense, but the ultimate explanation brought it together for me most satisfyingly.

Henry Maxwell was famous for Gothic horror, and the author incorporates elements of that writing genre in the book. Many chapters begin with excerpts from the fictional novel, Lady Julia’s Sarcophagus, and the author sometimes adopts that overwrought style. This bogs the book down, especially in the first few chapters. Fortunately, once the plot turns to the disappearing film copies, the pace picks up, and the book becomes much more enjoyable. The Salvation of Henry Maxwell could have also used more judicious editing at the end. The last few chapters were slow going.

Readers often say they’ve never read anything like the book they just finished. This is usually a sign of a somewhat limited reading history. But The Salvation of Henry Maxwell was a fresh experience for me. It has romance, mystery, suspense, and a love of a particular movie subgenre that went out of style around the time Henry Maxwell did. Despite occasional pacing issues, the book is a definite page-turner. My only regret is that Henry Maxwell didn’t leave me any real movies to watch.

NOTE: The publisher graciously provided me with a copy of this book through NetGalley. However, the decision to review the book and the contents of this review are entirely my own.