Customer Reviews

Death turns a trick

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This review is for the Ballantine Books paperback edition published in April 1992, 177 pages. DEATH TURNS A TRICK, first published in 1982, was Julie Smith's début novel, a mystery in the Rebecca Schwartz series. The author wrote four more novels in the Schwartz series, cumulating with OTHER PEOPLE'S SKELETONS in 1993, which was her first novel to make the USA Today bestseller list. Ms. Smith has written 19 mystery novels in four different series. To learn more, visit the author's website, juliesmithauthor.com.

Rebecca Schwartz is a never married twenty-eight year old feminist, Jewish lawyer in San Francisco who enjoys playing the piano. The story begins, on that fateful night, when Rebecca is playing the piano at a bordello as a favor for Elena, Rebecca's client and one of four prostitutes who co-share the proceeds of the business. Around midnight, the cops raid the joint. Rebecca escapes through a secret passage in the bordello's basement dungeon, but she has to take along a naked senator who was tied to the bed there. Rebecca and the senator get in a minor traffic accident. The senator runs but the cops get Rebecca, who left her purse at the whorehouse and is driving Elena's car. By the time Rebecca gets back to her apartment that night, there's a corpse on her Flokati carpet.

The writing is tight. Ms. Smith saves the sensory detail for the suspenseful moments when she wants to keep you teetering on the edge of your seat. The plot is free of hairpin twists and ridiculous feats, and the coincidences are lifelike. DEATH TURNS A TRICK is an unpretentious, fast-paced, fun read.

I'm not a huge Skip Langdon fan, but I love Rebecca Schwartz and her friends! Rebecca is a feisty, Jewish feminist lawyer who narrowly escapes trouble while playing piano in a bordello one night. Murder and mayhem follow, of course. What I really like about this book (and the other Rebecca Schwartz books) are the characters. Rebecca is so real -- she's proud of her strengths, and frustrated by her weaknesses. The book is written in first person, so you get to know her quite well. I like her law partner, her journalist boyfriend, her younger sister, and the sister's out-of-work-actor boyfriend, who is also Rebecca's receptionist. The story takes place in San Fransisco, with lots of wonderful descriptions of San Fransisco scenery, happenings, and food. The Sourdough Wars ties with Death Turns a Trick as my favorite Julie Smith mystery.

Skip and New Orleans just don't do it for me, much as I've tried...I just wish that Julie Smith would write some more Rebecca Schwartz mysteries so I wouldn't have to keep re-reading the few I have!

Julie Smith has created a protagonist who is likable; has no alcohol problems; comes from an educated, decent, supportive family; has a flourishing law practice; an honest, supportive law partner; decent boyfriends; and isn't continuously lighting up, whining, or committing acts of monumental stupidity. Surely that character, Rebecca Schwartz, is the most unusual amateur detective on the scene.

Perhaps all that decency doesn't sell: there are only five books in the series, the last written in 1993. Too bad. Julie Smith is an intelligent writer with a good sense of humor and the ability to keep her prose and her scenes interesting. I'm looking forward to reading the four that follow Death Turns a Trick, and, if Simon Brett and Jo Dereske don't hurry up with their next books, I'll be lost for easy (but intelligent) summer reading material.