Customer Reviews

How to Marry a Murderer (Paige Turner Mystery)

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Particularly the Manhattan/Greenwich Village fifties. This is one of the more unusual mystery genres out there -- a campy noir fifties mystery -- I only know of one other mystery writer who sets her mysteries in this era.

The "detective" in the series is Paige Turner (her parents didn't name her that -- she married a man named Turner who died in Korea), who works as a writer, editor, coffee maker and fetcher, and all-around grunt for a real life crime story magazine. Her boss is lazy and she gets taunted and harassed by most of the men she works with. She longs to write true crime stories and in pursuit of that, gets mixed up in murders. In this story, a famous television actress comes to her for help because she believes someone is trying to kill her -- and she thinks that it's someone close to her. Paige has a problem in that she promised her homicide detective boyfriend not to get involved in murder investigations, but Paige reasons that no-one has been murdered, have they? Well, not to begin with.

This is a campy fifties, where half the fun is being amused at the behavior of the characters, which include the Paige's best friend, a beatnik artist neighbor Abby, who says "I dig" and believes in free love. Abby's boyfriend is a beat poet who writes very bad and obscure poetry that he takes very seriously and recites at beatnik bars in the Village.

The plotting is pretty good and there's humor. The only thing that detracts from my ability to like Paige Turner is her habit of lying to all and sundry, including friends and boyfriends, if that's what she needs to do. She's doing it more in this book than either of the previous two.

I also think that the sexism and racism are anachronistic to some extent in the way they're portrayed in this series. I don't think that the people of the time were as outraged as the detective-character in this book is. For them, this was normal.

But otherwise, an enjoyable read and an escape to Manhattan in the fifties, where women wear hats and white gloves and the "Negro" is expected to defer to all whites, and women are expected to do the grunt work (except that which is relegated to the "Negro"). It keeps you from getting too nostalgic for those times, although there's still a romance about a night out at the Stork Club and being in the real Village of legend...

I have read all of Amanda Matetsky's books and I think this is the best one yet. Paige Turner is so much fun and her sidekick Abby is just icing on the cake! What I like about Matetsky's books is that I NEVER know who the murderer is going to turn out to be... she keeps me guessing all the way until the end, unlike many other mystery authors I have read. Add to that the continuous laughter I experience all through the story, and I end up putting the latest Paige Turner mystery at the top of my reading list very time.

Paige Turner has been susceptible to wisecracks regarding her name since the day she took Turner as her last name, and even more so since she began working for DARING DETECTIVE magazine, a mere five years ago. It's no surprise either, considering Paige works with a group of belligerent men with egos the size of Manhattan, and spends her days turning pages - newspapers, journals, articles; you name it, and she's turned it. But there's one thing Paige has going for her, and that's her savvy street smarts, and talent for detecting trouble. Which is why superstar Ginger Allen - the second most popular red-haired TV star in America - seeks Paige's help when she realizes that someone is trying to kill her. With a little investigating, Paige begins to think that Ginger is simply a paranoid celebrity, who has been the victim of various dangerous coincidences - such as being pushed in front of a bus, and having her highball poisoned. But when Paige hears word that Ginger is actually dead - pushed from the balcony of her high-rise apartment building, she knows that Ginger's concerns were true. Now, as the newspapers describe Ginger's death as a suicide, Paige continues her investigation - much to the chagrin of her Detective boyfriend, Dan Street - to uncover a collection of clues that point the finger at any of six people. It's now up to Paige to figure out which of these six people killed Ginger - and what they had to gain from her death - before she ends up next on the killer's hit-list, and loses the story that could easily launch her writing career at DARING DETECTIVE.

There is rarely a mystery series that grabs me from beginning to end, but that is the reaction I have whenever I pick up one of Amanda Matetsky's PAIGE TURNER novels. Paige is a brazen, brave, intelligent, warm character, whose wit - and worries - litter every page, making the reader feel as if she is a real person - not just a fiction character. Her friends - the vivacious vixen, Abby; and the hunky Detective, Dan Street; along with the various aggravating co-workers she must put up with on a daily basis, are hilarious and truly add to the story. But it's the 1950's New York City/Greenwich Village backdrop that keep the adventures flowing and will make readers - young and old - long for the good old days of dime store novels, and five dollar pumps. Humor and mystery collide in this endearing, amateur sleuth, trip down memory lane novel from Amanda Matetsky!

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

Another enjoyable Paige Turner mystery that gallops along at a breakneck pace. I found mayself having to take some deep breaths to keep up with Paige and Abby in their search for a murderer in the world of 50's television. The 50's setting is done wonderfully well, and the author keeps the books entertaining and fresh by not overdoing it. The usual suspects are both facinating and repellant in their arrongance, conceit and total selfishness. What is not entertaining and is getting really annoying, is Paige's constant duplicity and lies to people she supposedly likes and trusts. This trait really detracts from her appeal. Since she is both a war widow and 29 yrs. old, this also makes her seem juvenile and silly as well as irresponsible. I hope the author sees fit to make Paige a little more mature in this respect in subsequent books. All in all this was a fun read, and I look forward to more Paige Turner mysteries.

Ah yes. The good, old politically incorrect 50s, when men were men and women were expected to cater to them every minute! (Thank goodness for Betty Friedan!) But yet, that era did have its charms-mostly because we didn't know any better. Now that we do, it's kinda fun to take a trip backwards into the more recent past, and Paige Turner (who evidently listed to more broadcasts of radio's very popular `Let's Pretend' than she may have needed to) is an excellent guide. Her creator has really done her homework!

I wish I'd realized this was number three in the series (I'm now off to find numbers one and two) but it really stands well on its own. Without being repetitious there are enough reminders about the supporting cast to keep the reader informed.

Paige Turner is a young widow who works and lives in bustling New York, and has dreams as big as all outdoors. She has a nose for snooping into mysterious happenings and finds herself up to her eyebrows in trouble. Her patter (the book is written in first person) is snappy and jivey, and she vividly creates the New York of that era. The beatnik atmosphere of the Village jumps off the page. (But how much we've changed in just the last ten years! Then, we'd not have thought much of her constant smoking. Now? Shudder. Cringe.)

Of course, Paige has a hunky guy in her life-a policeman, who else?-to keep her busy when she isn't writing, and to save her from herself and her overactive imagination. But still, it's mostly Paige who figures out that TV star Ginger Allen was murdered, and eventually who dunnit, as well.

Paige tells her story with humor, warmth (especially in her episodes with Woodrow), meticulous attention to detail (especially fashions) and a willingness to picture herself as the scatter-brained ninny that most of her male co-workers think she is. She's rather endearing, actually, and might even be more so if she'd not `pretend' quite as much! Okay! Okay! I mean lie, or fib, or just exaggerate a bit more than necessary.

HOW TO MARRY A MURDERER, by Amanda Matetsky Berkley Prime Crime paperback, 2005, 308 ppgs., $6.99
Amanda Matetsky's new mystery, "How To Marry A Murderer" is out, and that's happy news for us fans who have been waiting for the newest installment in this scintillating series. Matetsky's heroine is Paige Turner, a hardworking, underappreciated former secretary at "Daring Detective" magazine (not the real one, as it turns out). She's the only female employee, working with a chauvinistic, all-male staff. Once again, we get to hippity-hop through the "happy days" of mid-1950's Manhattan (Okay, okay! So I love alliteration too, Paige!) We party at the Stork Club, go backstage at the TV show "What's My Line" (and what '50's Sunday evening would be complete without the frothy diversions of Ed Sullivan and "What's My Line", before gloomily pondering the prospect of going back to work Monday morning?), and rampage through the recesses of Rockefeller Center. By this time, Paige Turner has met with some success with her incisive articles on crime, as well as a couple of paperbacks that she's had
published, based on her exploits. As a result, she's been promoted to staff writer. But she's still not gained the respect that she deserves from her bosses, and her boorish co¬workers. She's also gotten her picture in the papers for having solved these cimes that she's been involved with. As a result of her notoriety, Paige is sought out by superstar Ginger Allen. Allen is a TV redhead, second only in popularity to Lucille Ball. She's lovely in black and white, ravishing but irascible in real life. She fears that someone is out to murder her, and requests -no, demands -that Turner find out who it is (and, along the way, hopefully thwart the effort!) Sad to say, Turner doesn't accomplish the former until the latter deadly deed is done, and Ginger plunges to her death from her high rise.
Along the way, we're reintroduced to Matetsky's captivating cast of supporting characters. There's boyfriend, Detective Dan Street, who has taken a dim view of her Sherlockian activities, until the last few pages of this adventure. The comforting presence of her next door neighbor, bohemian artist Abbie Moscowitz. Everybody should have such a neighbor! Abbie's motto is "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do." She spouts hilarious one-liners like, "Rules are like bread crumbs -strictly for the birds!" Her one supportive co-worker, Lennie Zimmerman, who once even saved her life! And, in this one, she makes a new friend, Woodrow, who we hope to see in subsequent outings.
Matetsky began the series with "Murderers Prefer Blondes", back in 2003. In that one, her beautiful blonde murder victim is strangled with a Hopalong Cassidy jump rope, purchased from Woolworth's 5&10! She followed that with, "Murderers Are A Girl's Best Friend". In all these books, we delight in the lively, inventive narrative that comes rolling headlong out of Ms. Matetsky's facile mind, like a New York City taxicab (not the new crop, but the' 50's kind, with the chatty drivers), or, perhaps, Woodrow's stretch limo. Rather than jumping out of the way, we can anticipate its spirited onrush, like any happy illusion, while it engulfs us with its charm.
Hurry back, Paige & Co., we'll be glad to drop in and pay you a return call any time.

Art Scott
Flagstaff AZ

I'm not what you'd call a big reader of mysteries, yet I did read Matetskys "How to Marry a Murderer" while on a rather long plane flight. My girlfriend's broken in copy was meant to fill the time and I didn't think I'd actually read the entire book while in flight but Matetsky's character of Paige Turner caught me by surprise. I didn't even stop reading when the inflight movie started and one of the airline's finest processed turkey rolls was placed in front of me. In browsing the reviews of Matetskys other books they sound pretty consistent with what I enjoyed the most about Marry a Murderer. A strong sense of what NYC was like during the 50's, a plot that kept me guessing, plenty of humor and believable snappy dialogue. I plan on backtracking and reading the previous books in the Paige Turner series, and I'm not even going to wait for another long plane flight to do it.

I've read most of the books of the series and I appreciate the noir feel to them. The author does a great job adding humor, mystery, well written characters and atmosphere of New York City.

This story is based on Paige helping the firey read headed actress Ginger Allen who believes that someone is trying to murder her. She asks Paige to help her after reading about Paige in the newspaper from the last mystery she solved. Paige is star struck initially, her curiosity is peaked and she agrees to help discover who could be trying to kill America's second favorite red headed actress.

Paige is assisted by her next door neighbor and friend Abby who is always willing to help and eager to be involved in the sleuthing. Paige of course has to walk a tight rope when it comes to her handsome boyfriend Detective Dan Street who does not like Paige's snooping and believes it should be left to trained professionals.

Leave it to Paige to keep us entertained as she pursues justice with her usual flair and panache.