All Aboard! My Fiction Debut

Today, Alta, the magazine launched by Will Hearst, premieres my fiction debut -- a four-part serial called "Murder on the Starlight Express." The story is based on a real train trip that my father, actor Lyle Talbot, Bette Davis and other Warner Bros. stars undertook in 1933 from Hollywood to Washington DC, for FDR's first inauguration. I invent a murder and intrigue on the train, and dream up several leading players. But it was fun to immerse myself in this tumultuous history, and to invent (or highlight) dialogue for the likes of witty writer Dorothy Parker, gangster Spike O'Donnell, Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters activist C. L. Dellums, villainous FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover, and FDR's right-hand man Louis Howe.

I hope you agree it's a fun and gripping read...