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The Bexley Backlot Mysteries

Name: The Bexley Backlot Mysteries: premade three-book series
Brand: PlotProse
Price: 705 USD
Availability: InStock

The camera sees the star. Kit watches everybody else.

A silent-film stunt double recognises the rehearsed movements, swapped performers and managed sightlines behind apparently impossible crimes on a Hollywood backlot.

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3-book package

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The Bexley Backlot Mysteries: the three covers of the pack

The concept

Kit Bexley earns her living taking the falls that make other women famous. At the fictional Halden Pictures, she can enter the wardrobe room, speak to the extras and notice who is standing in for whom. When a star vanishes while supposedly filming, Kit's knowledge of performance becomes more useful than the studio would like. Across a disappearance, a jewel theft and one murder, she learns to make her judgement visible in an industry that pays her to disappear. Coral Hart built this concept from the top-selling tropes and what's selling hot right now. Every book is read by a real human reader before it reaches you.

Halden PicturesA fictional Hollywood studio with exterior streets, painted interiors, a rain tank and crews who know whose work is routinely overlooked. The three books move from the studio gate to a controlled water set and finally a prestige picture's elevated scenery.

A changing professionKit works in the final years of silent cinema. Her ambition is to stage action and improve working practice, not to become a famous face. Changing productions and visiting casts supply future cases without making every colleague a recurring criminal.

Intended readershipReaders of character-led historical mysteries who enjoy a resourceful woman, an appealing recurring workplace, period glamour and fair clues. The emphasis is on film labour and practical deception rather than celebrity cameos.

Reader promiseA fully solved case per book, suspects introduced before the reveal and clues that the reader can interpret. The first two cases are nonmurder mysteries; the third contains the trilogy's only murder, off page. Kit's professional and personal future grows across the series.

Tone & contentBrisk, atmospheric and lightly witty. Clean romantic thread, no explicit sex, no graphic injury or sexual violence. Stunt work carries acknowledged risk; it is not presented as something untrained people can safely imitate.

The people behind the promise

Kit Bexley • 28Stunt double, former touring acrobat. Physically decisive but reluctant to challenge someone who can end her employment. She learns the difference between taking a calculated fall and accepting blame.

Mabel Soto • 33Wardrobe assistant and Kit's closest friend. Knows what a costume permits a body to do, and which apparent star has borrowed somebody else's shoes.

Daniel Mercer • 31Assistant cameraman. Patient, ambitious and attracted to Kit's directness. Their romance grows through ordinary reliability rather than rescue.

Vera Lennox • 30A studio star with real talent and a damaging willingness to let invisible colleagues carry the consequences of her choices.

Detective Amos Bell • 46A local investigator who understands that a convincing display still needs corroboration. He develops a useful working relationship with Kit.

Series progression

01 / VisibilityKit establishes that what the studio claims to have seen is not necessarily what happened.
02 / JudgementShe tests the account of a friend as carefully as that of a star.
03 / AuthorityShe refuses an unsafe production demand and earns a place shaping the work itself.

The three books

The direction is set. The books are written after you order.

Book 1 of three

A Vanishing on Take Seven

The star was filming all afternoon. So why was Kit wearing her coat?

Kit Bexley spends an afternoon running through smoke in Vera Lennox's coat. By evening, Vera is missing—and the studio insists its star was on set until the gates closed.

Kit knows who performed those takes. What she cannot explain is why the people who hired her now act as though she was never there. A demand for money follows, a production stops and a frightened young extra becomes the studio's favourite suspect.

To find Vera, Kit must follow a performance beyond the camera: a borrowed walk, a delivery nobody remembers and a departure made in plain sight. Someone has built the disappearance around a woman whose face the audience was never meant to see.

Story focusA staged disappearance • identity through movement • the cost of invisible work.

Place in the seriesKit establishes that what the studio claims to have seen is not necessarily what happened.

Book 2 of three

The Necklace in the Rain Tank

It vanished during one filmed embrace. Everybody watched the wrong hands.

The borrowed necklace is supposed to survive one rain-soaked close-up. Instead it disappears between the actress entering the set and the director calling cut. The tank is searched, the exits closed and Mabel Soto's wardrobe bag emptied in front of the whole crew.

Kit knows that a filmed embrace is a piece of choreography. She also knows Mabel has omitted a small, inconvenient part of the rehearsal. Clearing her friend will mean finding out why.

With a jeweller demanding repayment and a buyer expected before the next day's shoot, Kit retraces the scene body by body. The theft was performed in full view. Its success depends on everyone remembering the same misleading picture.

Story focusA jewel theft • choreographed misdirection • friendship tested by evidence.

Place in the seriesShe tests the account of a friend as carefully as that of a star.

Book 3 of three

Death Beneath the Painted Sky

The camera captured a fall. It did not capture when the man died.

A prestige picture should be Kit Bexley's chance to stage an action sequence of her own. Then veteran performer Hugh Fenn is found dead below the elevated scenery, and the studio offers a ready-made explanation: a stunt went wrong.

The footage appears to support it. Kit's rehearsal notes do not. Someone has joined separate moments into one reassuring story, and the director wants the remaining scene finished before the police stop production.

To learn what happened beneath the painted sky, Kit must ask the crew to remember what they did before they knew it mattered. Refusing the next fall may be the most consequential risk of her career.

Story focusOne off-page murder • a false sequence • a sleuth choosing professional authority.

Place in the seriesShe refuses an unsafe production demand and earns a place shaping the work itself.

Cover collection

The Bexley Backlot Mysteries

Cover of A Vanishing on Take Seven — A Vanishing on Take Seven

Cover of The Necklace in the Rain Tank — The Necklace in the Rain Tank

Cover of Death Beneath the Painted Sky — Death Beneath the Painted Sky

The promise beyond book one

Reasons to keep reading

A female stunt double whose access and skills create a credible investigative role.
Silent-cinema glamour seen from the working side of the camera.
Three different deceptions: impersonation, physical misdirection and a false sequence of events.

A world with room to grow

Kit's move into staging action permits later mysteries involving location shoots, travelling companies and the transition to sound. Her solved cases stay solved and her relationship with Daniel develops without repeated breakups.

Series overview

A star vanishes. A necklace disappears in full view. A fatal fall happens at the wrong time. Kit Bexley knows a picture can tell a convincing story while leaving out the person who did the work. On the Halden backlot, the most dangerous performance may be the one nobody knows they are watching.