Dead Star Island 
by Andrew Shantos

Dead Star Island, a remote tropical paradise, home to sixteen rock and movie superstars the world thinks are dead.

Elvis is there, so are Jimi, Marilyn and others. They've all lived for decades in luxurious, isolated anonymity. But someone is murdering them one by one in bizarre reconstructions of the deaths they staged to leave the real world.

Christian Adhis, the island's mysterious Director, is worried. Brian and John have been murdered in copycat killings, and that's bad for business. The remaining residents are living in fear, and demanding the killer is caught before he strikes again. So Christian calls in his old school friend Mario Gunzabo.

Once Greece's top detective, Gunzabo is racked with guilt following the car crash which killed his wife and baby, and in which he lost an arm. Now having left Greece, and working as a part-time tennis coach, he jumps at the chance to escape his life, visit the island and investigate.

Gunzabo finds that the residents have continued the drug-fuelled lifestyles they originally tried to escape, and he can't help joining in. Between parties he meets the staff: Ken Winter, charismatic former plastic surgeon to the stars, now the island's doctor; large-as-life receptionist, Mrs Bradley; her husband, Tommy, mute caretaker and main henchman for Christian; and Lastri, an alluring native woman, senior among the strangely passive villagers working on the island. Despite paying Gunzabo one million dollars to be there, Christian, a keen taxidermist, locks himself in his gloomy office, surrounded by stuffed animals, and refuses to cooperate with the investigation.

As motives, alibis and clues emerge, Gunzabo gradually untangles the web of secrecy and lies surrounding the island's existence. But another resident dies, and now it's time to sober up and solve the mystery before the Deja Vu Killer strikes again.


“Beautifully written fiction well plotted, with a real sense of style and more than a hint of the downright bizarre, but when all is added together, the story really works, and works very well. The mystery at the heart of the novel is intriguing, and whilst it is all very entertaining with Gunzabo at the head of the investigation, what mustn't be forgotten, is that this is also a rather dark, twisted and highly energetic murder mystery.”
Jaffareadstoo.blogspot

“This quirky read imagines 16 superstars the world thought were dead thrown together on an Indonesian archipelago along with a killer and a one-armed detective. A trippy page-turner.”
Sunday Mirror

“Fun, clever and very original”
Down the rabbit hole... Alice's adventures in bookland

“An entertaining beach read”
Barbara Copperthwaite

“A confident, bold debut”
CSMA Club