A Deed Of Death, The Story of the Unsolved Murder of Hollywood Director William Desmond Taylor.pdf

From Publishers Weekly
Well-born but disinherited Anglo-Irish actor and one-time Yukon prospector, William Desmond Taylor was a prominent Paramount movie director at the time of his unsolved murder in 1922. Suspects included his secretary Edward Sands, a thief and forger; Henry Peavey, his homosexual black cook; and two flamboyant screen stars: drug-addicted Mabel Normand, whom he loved; and 20-year-old Mary Miles Minter, who yearned to be his mistress. In a meticulous probe that reads like a detective thriller, editor-publisher Giroux ( The Book Known as Q ) makes a strong case that the murderer was a contract killer. He shows that Normand had incurred the wrath of dope peddlers, as did Taylor when he attempted to help her break her addiction. Brimming with details of Hollywood's silent era and its rampant post-WW I drug culture, this procedural offers glimpses of Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Sam Goldwyn, Mack Sennett, Fatty Arbuckle. Illustrations.

From Library Journal
The unsolved murder of movie director William Desmond Taylor has attracted amateur sleuths for years, including director King Vidor, whose findings were revealed in Sidney D. Kirkpatrick's best-selling A Cast of Killers ( LJ 7/86). Strangely enough, Farrar, Straus & Giroux publisher Giroux doesn't mention A Cast of Killers in this book on the case, although he obviously disagrees with its conclusion (that a starlet's mother killed Taylor) and its negative portrait of Taylor. While Giroux fails to provide readers with a solution to the crime, movie buffs will nevertheless appreciate his additional background history on the case and his admirable downplay of the scandals of the silent film era. --Susan Caputo, "Library Journal"

Note from uploader: Those familiar with the WDT murder mystery will know that Giroux's book is well regarded. Yet it is the only book on the case which has not been released in digital format. I've been interested in the case for years, and this was the only book I hadn't read. Finally I went to some effort to get my hands on it - my local library did not have a copy, so I applied for an inter-library loan. After about a month, it arrived, courtesy of a major university library. I only had the book for a limited time.

I scanned it right away - my first book scan ever. This one presented numerous challenges. There were photos on facing pages throughout the book - this necessitated scanning in greyscale as opposed to the higher-contrast B&W which one would normally use when scanning text. Also, the book was slightly taller than my scan panel. This made for some tight fits of content in the scanned result. On only one page was any text lost, and that was a single line of text beneath a picture identifying Mary Miles Minter as the girl standing in the photo. However, it is easy to pick her out, so there is no loss of integrity of the overall content for the reader. Finally, a single photograph spread across 2 pages necessitated a double-page scan rather than a single-page scan. All these factors taken into account, I don't think I could come up with a 100% satisfactory scan. However, it is completely readable, and the photos scanned very nicely.

The stray cat hairs that made it onto the pages... it's Spring, I have 3 cats, and no matter what I do, there's cat hair everywhere. Consider them a free bonus from my cats. =^..^=

I'm uploading the 3rd draft. All in all, a far from perfect first try. The audience for it is going to be small. I hope they will appreciate the hours I poured into this humble effort. This is for the silent film buffs out there who read - you know who you are... enjoy!