â Who in hell are the Sons of the Desert?â ? Hilary Quayle asked. â We're an organization devoted to Laurel and Hardy films. Sons of the Desert is the name of one of the best of the Laurel and Hardy feature films.â ? But what Hilary Quayleâ s secretary, Gene, didn't tell her was that women were not permitted to join the organization. When Hilary found out, she wasnâ t pleased, so she crashed a Sons of the Desert meeting. She wasn't intending to stir up major trouble; she certainly didnâ t expect to witness an on-stage murder. As always, it is Hilary who must solve the crime. Smart, independent, and enterprising, Hilary conducts her search for the killer in her usual methodical way. She takes the reader with her on a journey deep down into a show business netherworld that is rarely seen by outsiders. The characters in The Laurel and Hardy Murders include several real peopleâ some of them celebritiesâ who are members of the society of film buffs founded by the late Stan Laurel as a parody of all fraternal organizations. Marvin Kaye, in real life the one-time president of the Sons of the Desert, recreates the outrageously rowdy atmosphere of the club, shatters it with a spectacular murder, and then leads the reader through the tortuous process of finding and apprehending the killer.