Death Was the Other Woman
Non-series
Linda L. Richards
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-37770-3 (0312377703)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37770-0 (9780312377700)
Publication Date: January 2008
List Price: $23.95
Synopsis
(from
the publisher): As the lawlessness of Prohibition pushes against the
desperation of the Depression there are two ways to make a living in
Los Angeles: join the criminals or collar them. Kitty Pangborn has
chosen the crime-fighters, becoming secretary to Dexter J. Thomas, one
of the hard-drinking, tough-talking PIs who pepper the city’s
stew. But after Dex takes an assignment from Rita Heppelwaite, the
mistress of Harrison Dempsey, one of L.A.’s shadiest
– and richest- businessmen, Kitty isn’t so sure
what side of the law she’s on.
Rita suspects Dempsey has been stepping out and asks Dex to tail him.
It’s an easy enough task, but Dex’s morning stroll
with Johnnie Walker would make it tough for him to trail his own
shadow. Kitty insists she go along for the ride, keeping her boss
– and hopefully her salary – safe. However,
she’s about to realize that there’s something far
more unpleasant than a three-timing husband at the end of this trail,
and that there’s more at risk than her paycheck.
Review:
Long-time fans of hard-boiled detective writers Dashiell Hammett and
Raymond Chandler or newcomers to the genre are in for a fun ride when
Linda L. Richards’ 1930s gal Friday, twenty-one-year-old
Katherine “Kitty” Pangborn, and her liquor-loving L.A.
gumshoe boss, Dexter J. Theroux, team up to solve a missing persons (or
is it murder?) case in Death Was the Other Woman.
Richards has got everything about the genre down pat. “Dex is
tall and dreamy,” she says. “Oh. Sure, he’s a mook,
but he’s the kind of a mook that can heat a girl’s socks,
if you follow my drift. The kind that can get your lipstick
melting.” But Dex has got a problem with booze, bad memories from
The Great War and getting enough clients for a regular pay check for
him and Kitty. But when Rita Heppelwaite comes calling in “her
apple-skin tight dress,” offering Dex a bundle to spy on her
boyfriend, Dex and Kitty are off and running. They ramble around L.A.
by Red Car street car or in a rented auto with “a new bottle of
Jack Daniel’s on the passenger seat,” stopping at
speakeasies, nightclubs and casinos in search of the two-timing married
boyfriend who may or may not be “chilled, neat and sweet.”
And while they follow the clues from L.A. to ‘Frisco
they’re surrounded by characters as memorable as any that Sam
Spade or Philip Marlowe might know. Besides Rita and her missing
married squeeze, there’s Dex’s army friend, “a
fixer,” and tough guy sidekick, Mustard aka “Mus,”
and Kitty’s former housekeeper Marjorie Oleg, and now her
landlady, after Kitty’s father simultaneously took a bath and a
dive in the stock market crash of ’29, and Marjorie and her
husband took over the homestead and turned it into a rooming house. It
becomes a hideaway too for “Brucie,” the young wife of a
dead mobster, “a torpedo.” She’s got ties to others
besides her dearly departed, much to Kitty’s surprise. Then
there’s Lilla Dempsey, the wife of her married boyfriend Rita
wanted found, and a Rita Mayhew, who may or may not be the alias for
another character that turns up in the most unexpected of places.
Hopscotch, a big-time gambler, and his threats about welchers getting
“zotzed” also has his role to play. And, of course,
there’s a dead guy in a bathtub and the riddle of who he is,
where the body was found, how it got there, why it suddenly disappears,
and where it turns up. And what do the two steamship tickets that Kitty
finds have to do with the case?
In all, Death Was the Other Woman
is first class entertainment. There’s an historical richness
to the 1930’s references to L.A and ‘Frisco landmarks, the
“okies,” icons and events of the day, and the songs of the
times. Dex, although conflicted, is likeable, especially within the
context of his past, and Kitty even more so as she recalls former times
with her father but struggles with her future when she meets up with
some of her former friends and finishing school classmates on the San
Francisco trip. The plot is solid and with enough surprises to keep the
reader glued to the page. And as for the story’s ending, even
though Kitty says, “It was over. It was done. And I was
glad.”, the case still leaves her wondering if someone had
“orchestrated the death of her husband.”
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Death Was the Other Woman and to St. Martin's Minotaur for providing a copy of the book for this review.
Review
Copyright © 2008 — M. Wayne Cunningham
— All
Rights Reserved
Reprinted with Permission
Omnimystery keywords for Death Was the Other Woman
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Location(s) referenced: Los Angeles.