Death
Was the Other Woman
A
Kitty Pangborn Mystery
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.
Review Copyright © 2008 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Death Was the Other Woman? How would you rate it?
Mysteries in this series ...
Death Was the Other Woman
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), January 2008
ISBN-10: 0-312-37770-3 (0312377703)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-37770-0 (9780312377700)
Death Was in the Picture
St. Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover), January 2009
ISBN-10: 0-312-38339-8 (0312383398)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38339-8 (9780312383398)
Omnimystery
keywords for Death Was the Other
Woman
...
Location(s) referenced: Los Angeles, California.
