Customer Reviews

Murderers Prefer Blondes

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's 1954 in New York City. Paige Turner (yes, that is really her name), secretary at Darling Detective magazine, is determined to write an investigative story that will propel her into the ranks of magazine writer. Then young model Babs Comstock is found murdered. Paige finds Babs' photo in the Darling Detective files. Using the photographer's mark on the back of the photo as her first clue, Paige starts investigating. But as she follows up clue after clue she keeps running into Detective Sergeant Dan Street, who is also Darling Detective police advisor. He threatens to tell her boss of her extracurricular sleuthing if she does not quit the case. Does this stop our spunky young lady? Of course not! Her investigation leads her to Union Square, Times Square, Hell's Kitchen, Schrafft's, & the Copacabana among other places. But she has serious doubts about her abilities to continue her investigation after gang members attack her, the Mob ransacks her apartment, and a very angry old friend of Babs stalks her. Bolstered by her beatnik neighbor, Abby, Paige perseveres, shares her information with handsome Dan Street, and walks right into a situation that threatens her very life. Murderers Prefer Blondes is a gossipy and chatty little mystery. You can't help but cheer on this charming sleuth especially when she has her own self-doubts. And the name-dropping throughout the story will keep you smiling.

Also recommended: Nancy Martin's Blackbird Sisters series, Jill Churchill's Lily & Robert Brewster series

The year is 1954, and twenty-eight-year-old Paige Turner is trying to make her mark on the male-dominated literary world at "Daring Detective" magazine. Unfortunately, she can't get her gruff boss to allow her to do much more than clip the newspaper, make coffee, and edit her co-workers stories. So, when Paige comes across the murder of twenty-four-year-old Babs Comstock, a beauty who was strangled with a Hopalong Cassidy jump rope, she decides that now is her chance to break one of the biggest stories of the year. Now, armed with nothing more than a pen, a good pair of high heels, and a blonde wig, Paige has hit the New York City pavement, and is uncovering more secrets about the lives of the rich and famous than she ever thought existed. Now she just has to figure out which one of her suspects did the dirty deed, before the murderer decides that it's time to kill a brunette. A brunette with perfect grammar, and a funny name.

Amanda Matetsky is one of the best new authors to hit the mystery scene in years. I determined this when I read MURDER IS A GIRL'S BEST FRIEND - the second book in the series, which I read first - and have only come to realize it more, upon completing MUDERERS PREFER BLONDES. Paige Turner is an exciting female protagonist, whose nose for news, and amateur sleuthing skills make her an appealing character; while the set-up of 1950's New York makes for a charming backdrop to the tale, complete with nostalgia speckled in every corner. An on-the-edge-of-your-seat page turner that will leave you hungry for more.

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

I read the second in the series before this one, and I think the second was a bit better, but I was not disappointed at all with this one.

Korean War widow Paige Turner (and yes, people comment on her name, particularly since she works for a real crime stories magazine) lives in 1954 or so in Greenwich Village (NYC). Although she wants to be a writer for the magazine, she is stuck being underpaid and undervalued because she's a woman. She decides to write a story for the magazine and then they'll be able to see how talented she is. So when a woman she has met briefly is murdered, Paige goes to work trying to find out enough about the crime to write a story about it.

Needless to say, she's busy investigating the case in no time at all, which puts her at some peril from a variety of people, including but not limited to the murderer.

WHat I liked best was the sense of time and place, but the endearing characters are a close second. You really feel like you're right there and that these are people you know (Paige has a beatnik neighbor Abby who is her sounding board and able helper, not to mention offering her refuge when it gets too dangerous for Paige to be alone in her apartment).

This is probably a woman's mystery (is that a fault?) because it really does describe a world where women's choices (but only if she was single) were limited to nurse, secretary, or teacher. I look forward to reading more in the series.

I loved this book. It is a delightful mystery, with a bit of romance thrown in. The protagonist, Paige Turner, is an irresistable character... irreverent, but likeable, and FUNNY. This is the type of book I pick up when I want to relax, forget MY life and become totally engrossed in someone else's. I read it straight through and enjoyed every minute.

After eloping, Bob and Paige Turner moved into a small Brooklyn apartment for a month of connubial bliss before he went to boot camp and ended up in a firefight in Korea where he got killed. Two and a half years later, his widow Paige is living in a small duplex apartment on Delancey Street working as an editorial assistant for Daring Detective magazine. Paige's real goal is to be a staff writer and create true crime stories but in 1954 women were regarded as capable of only being office help.

When Babs Costock's murdered body is found in Woolworth's and her picture is run in the newspapers, Paige recognizes her as a woman who came to the magazine's office in the hopes of getting a job modeling for the cover. Paige thinks she's found the story that can get her a promotion so she starts investigating the victim's life. She learns the down side of a case of her own life is threatened more than once by various characters who want her to stop snooping.

The first Paige Turner mystery is a real page-turner. Anyone who has lived in New York City in the fifties will realize that the author has captured the essence of the time and place. The protagonist is a gutsy and strong willed woman who refuses to let the male dominated power elite keep her down or stop her from getting what she wants. MURDERERS PREFER BLONDES is a delightful historical amateur sleuth tale that is very atmospheric and plays up the nostalgia angle.

Harriet Klausner

It's 1954 and Paige Turner, a young widow, is working at Daring Detective magazine. She fetches coffee for the guys and is assigned the stuff that the guys are too lazy to do themselves. It's a thankless job and Paige dreams of becoming a writer for the magazine, if only her boss would let her write! What she needs is a good mystery story. If she could find one then she could write the story and her boss would see that she is a good writer and let her join the writing staff which is made up purely of men. So she puts up with all the jeers about her name and all of the sexual innuendos and scours the papers daily for the perfect crime to write about.

Twenty-four year old Babs Comstock is found dead, strangled with a child's Hopalong Cassidy jump rope and Paige immediately, secretly, begins to investigate. She learns that Babs was mixed up in a shady modeling agency, an escort service and perhaps even the mob!

***REVIEW:I read this book in a day and a half because I could not put it down! Paige is a wonderful heroine, tough when she needs to be but also human with human emotions and fears. Amanda doesn't try to turn her into a superhero. 1954 was a different time and I imagine that not much was said about sexual harrassment in the work place still I found myself hoping that she would at least give those two bozos that she works with a piece of her mind. I hope that this becomes a series!

This is truly comic art -- comic detective art, intricate Dick Tracy art tossed together with Superman, the unprepossessing Clark Kent in Lenny Zimmerman with his dark hair and "bottle-thick glasses." Heroine Paige Turner is delightful as would-be detective in this spoof on detective stories, and still Matetsky holds the reader in real suspense right up to the end. I don't know if she has invented a new genre or taken an existing detective story approach farther, faster and funnier than it's been taken before, but this book is delicious.

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is a terrific, fast-moving, thrill-filled mystery, with just the right touch of camp. Paige Turner, the heroine of this new series, works at a detective magazine in New York in the fifties, and Matetsky brings the place and period to vivid life. Long may this bright, brave sleuth have us turning pages!

This was entertaining reading at its best. The author takes you back to the fifties and before you know it you are caught up in Paige Turners life. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a fun book that also keeps you guessing until the end.

I loved how the book was set in the 50's, and wasn't one of those super predictable murder mysteries. I usually didn't like to read until I started reading the Paige Turner Series. I found this book while shopping with a few of my girlfriends. This book is helarious, and kind of pulls the reader into the story. I loved it. When my little sister--who hates to read unless she has to--picked up this book from my shelf, and read it, she loved it (I thought she was a lost cause). After she was done with it, she read the next book in the series, and now both of us can't wait until the next one is released!