Death
Was in the Picture
A
Kitty Pangborn Mystery
Linda
L. Richards
St.
Martin's Minotaur (Hardcover)
ISBN-10: 0-312-38339-8 (0312383398)
ISBN-13: 978-0-312-38339-8 (9780312383398)
Publication Date: January 2009
List Price: $24.95
Synopsis (from
the publisher): In 1931, while most of Los Angeles is struggling to
survive the Depression, the business of Hollywood is booming. And
everyone wants a piece. The movies have always been cutthroat and, as
girl Friday Kitty Pangborn is about to find out, that’s more
than a metaphor.
Kitty’s boss, private detective Dexter Theroux, has been
asked to help leading man Laird Wyndham prove his innocence. The actor
was the last person to be seen with a young actress who died under very
suspicious circumstances, and the star has fallen from the big screen
to the big house. Wyndham’s a dreamboat, but that
isn’t the only thing that has Kitty hot under the collar. Dex
has already signed a client -- one who’s hired him to prove
Wyndham’s hands are not as clean as they look.
Review:
After her successful Los Angeles debut in Linda L. Richard’s Death Was The Other Woman,
Kitty Pangborn, gal Friday to shamus Dexter Theroux, is back for an
encore. Like Kitty’s first adventure, this one’s
another fun-filled romp complete with bizarre but rounded characters
slinging Depression-era slang like “gams,”
“sawbuck,” “okies,”
“mook” and “sheesh,” knocking
noggins, and acknowledging 1930’s icons (Irving Thalberg) and
historical landmarks (Hollywood and Vine). It’s
“déjà vu all over again” for
lovers of the hard-boiled detective genre, but this time with a tinge
of noir at the end.
Narrator Kitty starts the story routinely enough with Dex hired by
Xander Dean, a mug “only a couple of cheesecakes shy of three
hundred pounds.” Dean wants Dex to shadow heart-throb actor
Laird Wyndham at a party. But since things are never as simple as they
seem, especially in mystery novels, Kitty and Dex are soon wrapped in a
web of intrigue, a set-up for a sex scandal and a murder for which
Wyndham is arrested and charged, despite his claims of a frame.
Wyndham’s long-time lawyer then hires Dex to clear the actor.
But the harder Dex and Kitty dig to clear their client, the deeper they
get into the glue, especially when Xander Dean would sooner break
Dex’s bean than let him break their original contract and
defend the suspected murderer. As Dex, Kitty and Mustard scratch and
sniff on Wyndham’s behalf, and Dex and Kitty attend the
Masquers Annual Ball, they uncover some unlikely connections to the
League of Decency, the Sodalists, the Hays Office, the William Morris
Agency, and the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. They follow
leads stretching from Chicago to Pittsburgh to St. Louis to a Hollywood
film set, giving new meaning to “going behind the
scenes” with Kitty as an extra in a lead-lined dress, Dex as
a faux financier blowing smoke and Mustard as his chauffer. In their
search for the truth and its consequences they come across a hophead
victim named Fleur McKenzie and an off-the-wall Hollywood trophy wife
with a houseful of cats. They encounter several starlets with legs that
won’t quit, and a couple of incompetent
“flatfoots” monikered Houlahan and
O’Reilly who work for Chief Roy E. Steckel. There’s
coffee called “joe” and a conflicted anti-Semite
censor called Joe Breen. And all the while Kitty’s still
recalling her Dad and how he lost his fortune and his life, still
berating Mustard for calling her “Kitty,” and still
living with Marjorie Oleg, once her nanny and now her landlady and
favourite cook. Most of all, she’s still fiercely loyal to
Dex despite his frequent TKOs in his battles with the bottle, old
memories and new enemies. And once the intrepid trio has sufficiently
ragged on the suspects and yakked over the clues about the murder and
the frame, Kitty outlines a final scenario with a surprise ending that
undoubtedly would have sent the real “Mean” Joe
Breen and the boys at the 1930s Hays Office scrambling for their
censors’ scissors.
In her author’s note, Linda Richards says that the more
research she did for her novel, the more she felt this was “a
story worth telling.” She’s right.
Special thanks to M. Wayne Cunningham (mw_cunningham@telus.net) for contributing his review of Death Was in the Picture.
Review Copyright © 2009 — M. Wayne Cunningham — All Rights Reserved — Reprinted with Permission
Have you read Death Was in the Picture? 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 in the Picture
...
Location(s) referenced: Los Angeles, California.
