Nebbish/shamus Stanley Hastings, who usually chases ambulances for negligence lawyer Richard Rosenberg, finally has his own client: mousy Melissa Ford, who wants him to look into her boyfriend David Melrose's background. In just one day's work, Stanley finds out so much about lying, womanizing David that it's no surprise when same turns up dead the next morning, with Melissa the obvious suspect. Repulsed by Melissa and her lawyer, Stanley takes time off from photographing young Raheem Webb's highly suspicious head injuries for Richard to tail some of David's associates in the hope of tying his murder to a drug deal—and this time he's the one who gets shot in a Harlem tenement, just in time for his court appearance as a witness against his former client and to make eager-beaver Sergeant Reynolds wonder if he might be the killer. Not as funny or as neatly plotted as Juror, Stanley's last outing, though Stanley gets to do a lot more detective work here—all of it endearingly incompetent.
Pub Date: June 27, 1991
ISBN: 1-55611-239-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Donald Fine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1991
Neatly incorporates history, social commentary, and a satisfying mystery in one appealing package. More, please!
A fashionable Australian private eye finds herself embroiled in a difficult case just after World War II.
As a war correspondent, Billie Walker witnessed some terrible things in Germany and still carries many burdens, including the disappearance of her journalist husband. Back home in Sydney, however, she has returned to full-time work as owner and investigator of a private inquiry agency she inherited from her late father. She even has Sam, a brave and affable secretary-cum-assistant, himself a former soldier. When a woman asks Billie to find her missing teenage son, clues lead to The Dancers, an elite club, and Georges Boucher, owner of an expensive auction house. It seems that an old family photo of a particular necklace is at the heart of the case, but who has taken Adin Brown, and to what end? At the same time, Billie's secret informant Shyla reports on a man in the country who has been mistreating girls. Of course, both cases are related, and the truth behind Adin’s abduction, in a very Dashiell Hammett–like turn of events, involves Nazi war criminals, stolen treasures, and a prostitution ring. Billie is a smart, glamorous, kind, and well-turned-out woman, and her addition to the world of literary private detectives is welcome and deserved. She carries a bit of the hard-boiled tradition on her shoulders—the vulnerability, the brashness—while providing a completely feminine perspective on both the crimes and the approach to crime-solving. Moss clearly did a lot of research for the novel, including a great deal in fashion and sewing, so sometimes the details and descriptions can be lengthier than necessary, but gradually, as the pace picks up, these details serve to help us get to know the characters on multiple levels. The setting feels simultaneously familiar and exotic.
Neatly incorporates history, social commentary, and a satisfying mystery in one appealing package. More, please!Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-18265-9
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
One of her best. Poirot, again on vacation, falls foul of a murder on board a Nile river steamer, followed by two successive murders, obviously connected. A sophisticated group, an ingenious plot, clever deduction, swift-paced narrative. A little romance on the side lends glamour. First rate entertainment.
Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1938
ISBN: 0062073559
Page Count: 354
Publisher: Dodd, Mead
Review Posted Online: Sept. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1938
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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