A missing actress, the uncaring world of Hollywood, and the peculiarity of fame in America

All she wanted was to see her name in lights. Now, her disappearance has made her front-page news.

It’s been twenty years since Madison James had any kind of success in Hollywood. Now she’s disappeared and a TikTok sleuth has found her purse discarded in a Los Angeles park. The news spreads like wildfire across a nation hungry for celebrity tragedy, and the struggling actress’s mysterious disappearance quickly becomes a national obsession.

Detectives Sarah Delaney and Rob Moreno of the LAPD Missing Persons Unit take the case. But truth is a rare commodity in Tinseltown; some people will stop at nothing to get what they want and Delaney and Moreno soon find themselves mired in Hollywood’s dark underbelly with little in the way of clues.

As revelations from the past emerge, it becomes apparent there is more going on than meets the eye. With an obsessive public watching every step of the investigation, can the police find Madison before she becomes more than just missing?

This is the first of Gray’s novels that I’ve read, and I very much enjoyed it. Long-time readers of CR will know that mysteries/crime novels set in and around Hollywood are like catnip for me, and this one was engaging and quickly paced. Thanks to a bout of insomnia, I ended up reading this in just two sittings.In The Final Act, missing persons detective Sarah Delaney and her new partner Rob Moreno take up the case of a missing actress. Madison James’s purse has been found in a park, and thanks to a TikTok “sleuth”, the disappearance is starting to gain traction. Newly assigned to the MPU, Delaney dives right in, and starts to pull apart Madison’s life, her past, and also the world in which she operated. She is a somewhat washed up actress — only three movie credits to her name, 20 years ago, before dropping off the Hollywood map entirely.

As Delaney and Moreno unearth more details, they start to suspect that Madison’s past may hold the key to her disappearance. Over the course of their investigation, they come up against some of the worst elements of Hollywood — especially an abundance of predatory men who believe they have a right to treat women as they see fit, for their own amusement and benefit. Through discussions with Madison’s manager, and others, they also learn about the actress’s journey through the uncaring world of Hollywood. All of this builds to a few surprises, which I won’t describe to avoid spoilers.

Gray takes the story in some interesting directions, and the author’s prose pulled me through. The pacing is excellent, and the characters are well-drawn. It’s not the most innovative mystery/crime novel, but it is a very enjoyable read, and doesn’t lean heavily on genre tropes. I’d certainly be interested in reading more novels featuring Delaney and Moreno, and I think the characters could anchor a series. We get to know Delaney more than Moreno, but there’s more to explore with both of them. (Also, given the reason Delaney moved from robbery-homicide to missing persons also offers plenty of opportunities for stories on the more personal side of a detective series.) I’m also going to have to read more of Gray’s other novels; and I think I’ll start with To Die For.

If you’re after a quickly-paced, engaging crime novel, then I think you could do a lot worse than giving Lisa Gray’s The Final Act a try.

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Lisa Gray’s The Final Act is out now, published by Thomas & Mercer in North America and in the UK.

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Review copy received via NetGalley