Customer Reviews

Death Was the Other Woman: A Mystery

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Kitty Pangborn was raised to be a prim and proper lady of the house, meant to marry well and plan the perfect party. When the stock market crashed in 1929, and her father leaped from a window leaving her broke and without real-world skills, she had to make her own way. She may now only be Girl Friday to Los Angeles private investigator Dex, but when his bungling of the job puts her salary in jeopardy, Kitty will step up to solve the case on her own. Someone has to.

I loved the voice of this book. You can almost hear one of the old silver screen actresses talking right off the page. Her wonderful first-person narrative was so true to voice as to lose those of us who aren't familiar with words like "mook" and "spondulix." But she helps us out with enough description that we can figure it out, if not exactly, in general.

This was an especially fun read. I enjoyed the strong heroine and that her boss, though bumbling, was not entirely an idiot. And I really enjoyed learning more about LA during prohibition, too. The cast of shady characters was so great as to leave me completely in the dark about whodunit until it was time to know. There are so many twists and turns in this book that I even started suspecting the good guys. Whose side was everyone on, anyway? I couldn't help but to just keep turning pages.

Even if you aren't typically into the mystery genre, I encourage you to pick up this book. Though there are many dead bodies, the book was not at all gruesome and considering all the two- and three-timing that was going on, and talk of melting lipstick, it was also surprisingly clean.

Armchair Interviews says: Highly recommended.

In 1931 Los Angeles cynical private investigator Dex Theroux runs a two person office. Whereas he does the leg work and takes the beatings, Kitty Pangborn runs the office and occasionally does safe field work. Dex is unsure why Kitty remains with him, as paying jobs are infrequent and he knows he is an alcoholic though with good cause.

Wealthy Rita Heppelwaite hires Dex to report on what her married boyfriend, Harrison Dempsey is doing. Thinking this is an easy case and needing help on surveillance, Dex brings Kitty with him. However, their prey proves to be someone else's prey as the sleuth and his assistant finds the murdered corpse of Harrison. Dex wants to make money from his affluent client so he tells Kitty to say nothing about the dead body for now. Kitty is appalled by her boss' disregard of the deceased so she defies Dex and calls the cops. However, to her shock she soon learns that Harrison is alive making her wonder what is going on.

With Madeline Carter on temporary hiatus, Linda L. Richards introduces readers to a new fascinating detective team in a fine historical mystery. The story line is fun, but not so much due to the mystery of Harrison and the corpse or depression Era L.A., but instead because of the bickering relationship between unethical Dex and the moralistic Kitty. They make the tale entertaining.

Harriet Klausner

Linda L. Richards' DEATH WAS THE OTHER WOMAN provides veteran narrator Joyce Bean's smooth and compelling style as it tells of one Kitty, who needs a job and finds her hands full as a secretary to a tough PI in a challenging world. Kitty's efforts to keep her boss - and her salary - safe result in some dangerous action perfect for fans of the gritty hard-boiled detective listen.

This review is for the MP3 audio CD of "Death Was the Other Woman". I'm mentioning this because I see hardcover reviews showing up for the MP3 CD, which makes no sense. With audio books, the person reading the story is as important as the story itself. And while the story here is good campy fun, the person reading it (Joyce Bean) isn't.

Bean reads the story with incredible enunciation, almost to the point of sounding robotic. Her emphasis, timing and even her emotion seem off. It's as though she's reading another story altogether. I get the sense she felt no connection to what she was reading, and whoever was directing her didn't care.

On top of this, Bean's attempt at male voices is jarring. All her male characters sound the same, like a frog who's chain-smoked for 30 years.

You go into a popcorn novel like this expecting cliche camp: Smoky, sultry, moody, dangerous. The story itself had these things in spades. I just wish Bean had been able to deliver on the reading.

Set in 1931's L.A., this detective novel is narrated from the assistant's (Katherine Pangborn) point-of-view. L.A.'s press boasts that the Depression hasn't hit their city, but Katherine goes up against some unsavory charaters from the city's gangsterdom. Katherine (she hates the nickname "Kitty") makes for an engaging protagonist and her boss, P.I. Dex Theroux, is lucky to have her as his sidekick. She's observant, curious, and when the situation calls for it, tough as nails. The violence quota is kept to a minimum just as the detective books written in 1931 did. Terrific retro front cover art adds a dash of color. I also liked the cityscape described with the buildings, streets, and architecture not only in L.A., but on the sidetrip to San Francisco. Good backstory on Katherine gives her character depth. Enjoyable read on a rainy afternoon.

In Linda L. Richards' Death Was the Other Woman, Kitty Pangborn had no intention of becoming a shamus (private eye), but when she landed a job as secretary to hard-drinking, haunted Great War vet Dexter J. Theroux, she's on the case. Kitty and Dex traipse across Prohibition- and Depression-era Los Angeles on the trail of Rita Heppelwaite, mistress of a powerful mob figure, and the web of lies that Rita spins.

Kitty makes a believable narrator as a girl whose diminished circumstances have left her with a newfound sense of independence (Kitty's reunion with her private high school chums was a reminder of the rapid reversal of fortunes that the Crash of '29 inflicted on wealthy families). Not one to wallow in her misfortunes, she goes out and lands a job as a secretary (since the years of etiquette training and upper-class mannerisms don't come in handy in the working world). She and Dex make a good team as she understands his dark, alcohol-fueled melancholy; she keeps him straight when he's too drunk to drive, which is frequently. However, theirs is strictly a working relationship, and Kitty's love life is nonexistent.

Populated by a fascinating cast of characters including Mustard, a "procurement" specialist who may have mob ties, the haunted Dex, Rita and the glitzy world of upscale bootlegger clubs, and several criminal elements, the main character might as well be 1930s LA. Chock-full of 1930s period details about the architecture and culture of Los Angeles (vintage cars, diners, districts, early highway travel), Death Was the Other Woman also revels in its 1930s vocabulary and noir trappings that accent a gritty, fast-paced story into the seedy underbelly of organized crime during Prohibition (and a microcosm of the Depression, as Kitty's story is a riches-to-rags one). Fans of pulp stories and film noir will find a lot to love here.

Might make a good Harlequin romance (I've never read one) but it's not a hard-boiled detective story.

To quote Loren Eaton (another reviewer), "And while mysteries occasionally allow coincidence to connect clues, serendipity becomes both the mortar and masonry of The Other Woman's action. None of this is helped by a talky, anticlimactic denouement." The ending makes my head spin. I was trying to tail the plot but I guess it made me and I lost it.

Dex Theroux isn't a believable character. He's neither straight nor gay. Both he and Kitty are supposed to be adults but neither appears to have any libido. Yes I know, this is supposed to be a period piece but men and women have been interested in sex since the year one.

Kitty is a likeable, but hopelessly naive airhead. In reality, she'd be dead/pregnant/raped in short order. She goes up against murderers armed with nothing but curiosity. Do I look like I just fell off a load of turnips?

There's a lot of authors around who appear to believe that the secret to success is copying Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. Their characters (Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer) were appropriate for the time when their novels were written. John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker and Robert Crais brought the detective novel up-to-date. Travis McGee, Spenser and Elvis Cole are well-rounded, believable characters (amongst other things, they're interested in love/sex). In my opinion, neither Kitty nor Dex fall into this category.

Twenty-three-year-old secretary, Katherine (Kitty) Pangborn, isn't impressed with her boss's new client, but private investigator, Dex Theroux, can't afford to turn business away. Rita Heppelwaite's hired Dex to find out if her rich boyfriend, Harrison Dempsey, is cheating on her. Needless to say, things don't go well. Kitty discovers Harrison's body in a bathtub. The next day, she and Dex learn that his body's disappeared and there's no trace of a murder at all.

This is one of many plot twists in Linda Richards' terrific new series, Death Was the Other Woman. The story's set in Los Angeles in the early 30's, and while this setting might seem overdone to some mystery readers, Richards puts a modern spin on the classic detective novel by having Kitty do most of the sleuthing. But then Kitty doesn't have much choice. At age thirty-four, Dex is an alcoholic war vet struggling with personal demons.

Kitty Pangborn is a delightful character: smart, educated, and raised in a wealthy environment until the stock market crash of 29 tore her world apart. Now on her own and poor, she's slowly adjusting to a working-class life filled with uncertainty while coping with moments of profound sadness and a longing for the past. But Kitty's determined, resourceful, protective, and above all, interesting. I can't wait to read more of her adventures.

Contrary to the popular proverb, plenty of people select books based on the winsomeness of their dust jackets, and if cover content alone counted, Linda L. Richards would rock the bestseller lists. Her hardcover debut, Death Was the Other Woman, not only possesses a killer title, it also has artwork so sharp you could cut yourself on it. The front features a bleary-eyed gumshoe pouring a drink as he stares up at the beauty with bee-stung lips leaning against his desk, a pistol coolly clasped in her hand. Intrigue, gunplay and a hint of romance -- what's not to love?

This promise carries past the flyleaf and into the first few chapters. Kitty Panghorn was once a high-flying society girl until the Great Depression came down or her family's fortune like a load of bricks and her father took a short walk out an eighth-story window. Penniless in Los Angeles, Kitty finds the first work she can, becoming the secretary of one Dexter Theroux, private investigator. But Dex spends so much time examining the bottom of the bottle that when a saucy minx strolls into the office with a case, he blows the whole thing by falling asleep on the job. A dead body turns up. Then it disappears. Soon the police take an interest in the mystery -- a mystery only Kitty may be able to solve.

Unfortunately, the set-up soon develops as many holes as a Mafia informant. Prohibition-era crime fiction ought to sound punchy and hard-bitten, but the novel lapses into prose better suited for domestic drama than a detective story. And while mysteries occasionally allow coincidence to connect clues, serendipity becomes both the mortar and masonry of The Other Woman's action. None of this is helped by a talky, anticlimactic denouement. Still, the characters are interesting and the premise compelling. Here's to hoping Richards' future novels eclipse their excellent covers.