I READ THIS A FEW YEARS AGO AND AM RE-READING. It holds up:   Christopher DiGrazia The Director’s Cut.

“I wanted a job. I got a murder.”

When makeup artist Toby Swanson joined the Fox Film Corporation in 1914, he hoped to sneak a kiss from the studio’s newest star, the seductive vamp Theda Bara. But when a scene goes horribly wrong, Bara’s film is cancelled and her dreams of stardom crushed. Unless. . .she can prove that what looks like an accident is really murder.

So together, Theda and Toby dive into showbiz New York, from dancing with a young Rudy Valentino to sharing the vaudeville stage with Sophie Tucker and learning lockpicking secrets from Harry Houdini, all leading up to a mysterious church crypt with a deadly secret.