Special Report: Murder at the Movies (2026)

Alicia Malone has spent years watching screwball comedies and noir thrillers for Turner Classic Movies — now she's put herself inside one. The TCM host talks with Mike White about Murder at the Movies: A Movie Palace Mystery, her first novel and the first fiction title TCM and Running Press have ever published.Malone traces the book back to an accidental pitch over coffee with her editor, Cindy Sipala, and to her own fantasy of running a theater — the inspiration behind Audrey Sullivan, the Los Angeles transplant who inherits her grandmother's movie palace on a fictional Maine island only to find a body in the aisle after a Hitchcock screening goes wrong. Malone talks about disciplining herself to a deadline and a word count, getting early notes from noir historian Eddie Muller, and loading the book with classic-film Easter eggs for TCM viewers to spot.She and Mike also cover her favorite cozy-mystery writers, from Lorna Barrett's Book Town series to Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club, the already-underway sequel (A Killer in the Credits), and how she splits her time between the novels and her TCM, The Gilded Age, and Reel Destinations work. Murder at the Movies is out October 6th from Running Press.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth