Marilyn Monroe’s Diary: Was She Murdered?

Tony Castro's intriguing mystery challenges the official cause of Marilyn Monroe's sudden death at age 32. This fascinating novel points the finger at frightened politicians (including JFK), corrupt cops, angry mobsters, and headline hungry media.

A review by Alex Ben Block

The central character in this fascinating page-turner of a novel, Josie Clémenceau, looks like Marilyn Monroe, was her maid, confident and doppelganger, who about 15 years after the glamour star’s sudden  death at age 32, comes out of the shadows claiming she has long held a secret diary, written in the stars' hand, that spins out untold details of Monroe’s final days, with the implication she was actually murdered.

Talented author Tony Castro, who I met long ago when we both worked for the LA Herald Examiner, is a vivid storyteller and literary master who brings to life rich, complicated characters,  in a mystery thriller with elements of political dynamite, mob links, double-crossing Hollywood moguls, low rent journalists, and most importantly JFK and RFK, both pictured as cruel lovers of Monroe who wanted, and ultimately needed, her dead.

Josie turns to a prize winning L.A. Herald Examiner reporter named Alex to finally make public the seemingly explosive Monroe memoir, putting both their lives in danger as the forces that wanted Monroe dead also want her death to be buried alive.

The story builds to a climax you will have to read to decide if it is true or fake, and if the movie star blonde bombshell’s ultimate fate is the right ending.

It builds page by page until it is hard to stop reading, leaving the reader conflicted and sad that Monroe had to die under sorted circumstances.

If you want the perfect beach book this summer, welcome to “The Book Of Marilyn.”

From Goodreads.com

If you loved Marilyn Monroe, watch the brilliant director Billy Wilder's classic movie “Some Like It Hot” again and again.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

FROM HIS OFFICIAL WEBSITE: Tony Castro is an acclaimed journalist, historian, and author, recognized for his New York Times bestselling work that includes the literary biography Looking for Hemingway (NPR: Best Books of the Year), the landmark civil rights history Chicano Power (Publishers Weekly: "Brilliant... a valuable contribution to the understanding of our time...") and his multi-volume profile of baseball icon Mickey Mantle, detailing his crucial role in shaping the place of modern sports heroes in American pop culture.

Castro's much-anticipated forthcoming biography The Girl Who Would Be Marilyn Monroe: An Intimate Portrait of the Young Norma Jeane—about how the future Hollywood screen legend overcame a traumatic, complicated childhood—will commemorate the centennial anniversary of Marilyn Monroe's birth. That book is due out in 2026 from Rowman & Littlefield/Bloomsbury Publishing.

Educated at Baylor and Harvard, where he was the youngest Nieman Fellow in the college's history, Tony is a former national correspondent for The Washington Post, and has also written for the Los Angeles Times, and Sports Illustrated. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Renee LaSalle and Jeter, their black Labrador retriever. Their two grown sons, Trey and Ryan, also reside in Southern California.