E.Z. Friedel has woven together known facts with disputed innuendo and the most often-believed alternate theories and added meticulously researched historical detail to create a fascinating novel of Marilyn Monroe’s last days.

Marilyn's Red Diary breathes life into the legend to create a poignant, plausible sequence of events. With Friedel’s deft use of imagery and attention to detail, readers can almost feel Marilyn’s angst, disappointment, anger and fear. Fear that her career was so far down the slippery slope of “sex symbol” that she would never be allowed to claw her way into the category of serious actress that she desperately needed (and many say deserved) to be classified in. Fear that the all-powerful Kennedy boys were chipping away at the last vestiges of her hard-won yet delicately brittle self-confidence with their cavalier love-her-today-don’t-take-her-calls-tomorrow attitude toward her overlapping affairs with the brothers.

Friedel does an excellent job of advancing the plot with proper pacing, alternating a plodding storyline to embody Marilyn’s approach to the concept of being on time to the frenetic pace of her harried flurry of phone calls in the deep dark of many nights—up until her final night, when her oft-repeated pattern of desperate dialing for reassurance was interrupted by only God knows what, why and how all those pills wound up in her system with her locked in a room with no sign of liquid because the water to the sink had been off for days.

Marilyn’s Red Diary is a must-read for Marilyn, Hollywood or Kennedy fans. As a novel it can’t give definitive answers to the query of why Marilyn Monroe really died, but it certainly is an engrossing read that will make you think, get angry, and maybe even shed a tear or two at the callous end of such a lustrous star.