Stardust: A Novel

Joseph Kanon is a very productive writer and I genuinely like, in almost all of his books the interweaving of history, geography, timeframe and real and fictional people to create a very visual and alive atmosphere. But, I've noticed in the last few of his books the I've read, most recently Stardust and Alibi (I don't know the chronology of his books so I can't say this is a recent trend) that I just don't care for the characters. I found myself hoping that somebody would knock some sense into Ben and even better, just knock him. He is stubborn, self-righteous and egotistical, everything he does he can justify but he can't seem to find or understand others' perspectives. I think Mr. Kanon gives a very unrealistic view of studio life and studio politics. In the real world, I think Ben would have been kicked out on his ear and where was the Army in all of this while Ben is playing detective. Interesting plot, good atmosphere, many interesting (minor) characters, but in the end, I could not stomach Ben.

This long book is heavy on dialogue. Everybody is talking and talking and talking. It's written in Kanon's unique stream of consciousness style which has worked well in other books but doesn't in this one. The book just lacks focus and clarity.

I enjoyed some parts of the book but there were other areas of the plot I just didn't care for. Maybe to much underhanded things with the characters.

Stardust takes place in 1945. WWII has ended, Europe is in ruins and lives have been shattered. In Joseph Kanon's book, Ben Collier is on the Chief, a train that runs from the east coast to the west coast, to attend to his brother's affairs. Once there, Ben learns his brother, Daniel, is lingering in a coma and not expected to live .Ben also learns that Daniel was either pushed or fell from the balcony of the apartment he rents for reasons that are unknown but are suspect.Movies have a cast of characters and so does Stardust. There's Daniel who seems to be greater and far more interesting in death than he was in life. Lisel is Daniel's widow who came to the States early on in the war and has never acclimated to Hollywood or the life that plays out there.. Then there are those who came during and after the war to a new country with barely their lives. Other characters also came from Europe very little except for what could be smuggled out of Europe. Hollywood is a character in Kanon's story. It's the backdrop on which Stardust plays out.Stardust is a good read. The only way to improve Kanon's book would be to use a good editor. So, my question is: where have all the good editors gone? Writers have fabulous ideas around which to base a novel. But it is the editor who takes the novel in its most raw and rough form and makes it shine like a diamond. A good editor would have tightened up Stardust and made a good book better.

Ben Collier, nee Kohler is a soldier with the Signal Corps tapped to make a movie about the horrors of the concentration camps. On his way back to the states to do this job and see his estranged brother, he learns that his brother has 'fallen' from a hotel balcony in a suicide that is hushed up as an accident. Ben becomes sure that his brother was murdered, the question is by whom and why. Searching for answers, Ben Collier tours a post-war Hollywood and America on the verge of replacing a hot war with a cold one.The plot and characters in this book are intricate and clever, but the real magic is in the atmosphere and the dialogue. Stardust invokes not only silver screen Hollywood but the pictures that made it a legend. Think Double Indemnity and Out of the Past to get some idea of the flavor of Stardust. The book is dialogue driven and there isn't so much as a wrong grace note. The characters have the cynical patter and the heartbreaking melodrama of the noir films that inspired them without ever falling into parody. Other reviewers comment that the book could have been shortened and tightened, but the reader would have been the loser as depth would have been lost. More importantly time in a magical, lost, probably illusory world would have been shortened for the reader.Stardust is a great way to spend time in a Hollywood that never was, but a Hollywood we all know just the same. Highest possible recommendation to those who love noir, Silver Age Hollywood or literary mysteries. Stunning.

As a big fan of Hollywood history from the Golden Era, I was knocked out by Joseph Kanon's ability to bring out the essence of that era without falling into the trap of letting the history overpower the mystery. He mixes real people with a cast of believable fictional characters in a story of a man who refuses to believe his brother, a screenwriter-producer on the rise, committed suicide. The protagonist threads his way through the high end of Beverly Hills, running into a handful of people who know fragments of the the truth, and many more who just want to look the other way. This novel and Kanon's atomic secrets mystery "Los Alamos" deserve to be on your shelf.

This novel features Ben Collier, an ARMY soldier on the verge of mustering out at the end of World War II, whose background is making films for the military. Sent to Hollywood to oversee the production of a film depicting the impact of the holocaust he becomes embroiled in a murder mystery when his brother is killed. And as we all know, a mystery must be solved. This is probably not the author's best work but its certainly good enough. Sometimes we get spoiled when we have read a book by an author that we loved, only to be disappointed by a later book that seems not to measure up. But how many of us can afford to require something approaching perfection in every book we read? If you like historical mysteries from the recent past this one is well worth reading.

Stardust is not a thriller or a drama-documentary or a historical novel but it combines elements of all three genres. Kanon has done all the research necessary for this immaculate recreation of Hollywood emerging from WW2. Then he has imposed upon it a plot with just the right amount of complexity and unexpected twists to keep the reader turning the pages slowly and appreciatively.I have done a lot of reading during lockdown but Stardust is the book that I will be remembering when the world has come back to life.

I'm sorry ... I was a fan of Joseph Kanon's works, having read and enjoyed all of his books to date, and so it was with great pleasure that I awaited the arrival of this one.I don't intend to review the book, to be honest I can't remember much of the detail, but I will say that I couldn't wait to reach the end. It started quite well, but by about mid-way through I had ceased caring about any of the characters and the whole thing seemed contrived to me, in the way that someone is trying to hard to make a production out of something quite mundane. To my mind, the plot was too convoluted for such a weak story. A shame really.I'll read the reviews of his next one before I buy.

Thoroughly enjoyable romp through the golden age of Hollywood, mixing real people with the fictional characters. Overlaid with post war guilt and memories .

I've read and enjoyed all this author's novels, but found this one a long haul. He has touched on the same subject in 'the prodigal spy'. I like the way that as you read his stories you get a history lesson but in an interesting way. There is certainly mystery here. it is a good whodunnit, with a slight twist. There is some action, especially at the end. The end reminded me ofa certain Woody Allen film. But I digress.I kept imagining Ingrid Bergman as the character, Liesl.As another reviewer has written, worth sticking with to the end,Oh yes, the paperback by Simon and Schuster has a classier cover that matches the style of the previous books, rather than that one showing here.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel which marks a great return to form by Joseph Kanon after the disappointing "Alibi". The setting of Hollywood immediately after World War 2 with the first rumblings of the coming McCarthy witchhunts amid the German colony of exiles is brilliantly drawn. Ben Collier returns from the war to California to investigate the mysterious death of his film maker brother and becomes embroiled in the politics and tensions of Hollywood as it emerges into the post-war world of new challenges,threats and Unamerican activities. Collier is a masterful creation as he digs deeper into the apparent suicide of his brother andcome to terms with conflicts between old loyalties, the mystique of film making and the new politics. The beautiful and fascinating Liesl, his brother's widow, is only one of the range of complex protagonists he encounters in his search for the truth.A superbly written, gripping and profound novel of the unreal world of 1945 Hollywood and the realities of the new American Century.