Windhall, Ava Barry
Windhall, Ava Barry
List: $28.00 | Sale: $19.60
Club: $14.00

Windhall

Author: Ava Barry

Narrator: Seth Podowitz

Unabridged: 10 hr 31 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Scribd Audio

Published: 12/21/2021


Synopsis

1940s Hollywood was an era of decadence and director Theodore Langley was its king. Paired with Eleanor Hayes as his lead actress, Theo ruled the Golden Age of Hollywood. That ended when Eleanor’s mangled body was discovered in Theo’s rose garden and he was charged with her murder. The case was thrown out before it went to trial and Theo fled L.A., leaving his crawling estate, Windhall, to fall into ruin. He hasn’t been seen since.

Decades later, investigative journalist Max Hailey, raised by his gran on stories of old Hollywood, is sure that if he could meet Theo, he could prove once and for all that the famed director killed his leading lady. When a copycat murder takes place near Windhall, the long reclusive Theo returns to L.A., and it seems Hailey finally has his chance.

When Hailey gets his hands on Theo’s long-missing journals, he reads about Eleanor’s stalkers and her role in Theo’s final film, The Last Train to Avalon, a film so controversial it was never released to the public. In the months leading up to her death, something had left her so terrified she stopped coming to work. The more Hailey learns about Avalon, the more convinced he becomes that the film could tell him who killed Eleanor and why she had to die. But the implications of Avalon reach far beyond Eleanor’s murder, and Hailey must race to piece together the murders of the past and present before it’s too late.

About Ava Barry

Ava Barry is the author of Windhall. She previously worked as a script reader for Bold Films and Intrigue Entertainment and as an editorial assistant for Zoetrope: All-Story, Francis Ford Coppola’s literary magazine. A California native, she lives in Australia.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on April 27, 2021

About the book: “A stunning literary thriller in which an investigative journalist in modern Los Angeles attempts to solve the Golden Age murder of a Hollywood starlet.” Windhall is a book you simply have to discover. It is a literary thriller with a historical backdrop. It’s sophisticated and fancy;......more

Goodreads review by Karen on July 25, 2023

Wow! I did not see that one coming! So, not to be a spoiler…but, this is a mystery. Investigative journalist Max Hailey has been obsessed with a Hollywood cold case his whole life. In the late 1940’s, famed director Theo Langley was accused of murdering his leading lady Eleanor Hayes during a party......more

Goodreads review by Jake on April 11, 2021

Sigh. Why can’t books like this be easier to review? There’s so much to like about Ava Barry’s debut novel Windhall…and so much that grated on my nerves. I really wanted to push this to a charity first-book-4-star review and I just couldn’t. The book kind of feels like the version of the decaying mans......more

Goodreads review by Becky on March 05, 2021

Ava Barry’s debut novel is a five-star read. It has a sophisticated plot and larger than life characters wrapped in an exhilarating mystery. Anyone who loves a good murder mystery (on the darker side) and a protagonist that takes you along for the ride, this is the book for you. I can’t wait to see......more

Goodreads review by Geonn on March 07, 2021

I liked the mystery of this book, and the female characters were great, but the narrator was *such* an asshole. I legitimately hated the guy by the time the book was over. Petra would’ve been a much better character to follow for the duration. I also found it odd that it took most of the first chapt......more