One O'clock Jump: a swing town mystery for the young at heart (Dorie Lennox Mystery Series) [Kindle Edition]

Lise McClendon (Author)

Book Description

Halfway around the world, war has begun, but for Dorie Lennox, a newly-minted private eye on her first tail, danger is more immediate. The dark streets of Kansas City of 1939 offer swing music, fast cars, gangsters, and the chance to forget about the Depression and her own murky past. But first she must conquer her fears and save a woman on a bridge high above the muddy Missouri. Dorie is thrown into a quickly unraveling scam that offers salvation to few — and misery to plenty — in the high stakes world of machine politics and desperation deals.
The landscape of America and the homefront of World War II are evoked in a thoughtful mystery that lingers for the force of characters and keen sharpness of a slice of history seen through the perceptive, compassionate eyes of Dorie Lennox.
Read about Dorie’s next adventure in Sweet and Lowdown.
“Wonderful. . . a richly detailed story that quite simply gets to your heart.” -- Michael Connelly
“One O’Clock Jump is like a time capsule, transporting a tale of murder, greed, and intrigue from vintage Kansas City into the present day.” — Sue Grafton
“McClendon debuts an excellent historical series, with evocative period dialogue and a story line full of surprises.” — Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Segueing neatly from the ski slopes of contemporary Wyoming (1999's Nordic Nights) to the Kansas City of Count Basie and FDR's fireside chats, McClendon debuts an excellent historical series, with evocative period dialogue and a story line full of surprises. Iris Jackson is a woman with a secret, but not for long. PI Dorie Lennox, hired to tail the meatpacker's "bar girl," thinks her first solo job is over when Iris jumps into the Missouri River, but this is just the beginning. Background on Iris is hard to find; rummaging through her few belongings yields scant information. Frustrated, Dorie picks up the investigation her partner, a WWI vet suffering from mustard gas poisoning, was working on when he was hospitalized centered on the new racetrack outside Kansas City. With little to go on, Dorie follows what leads she has straight into a web of false identities, cover-ups and fraud. Everyone seems to have at least one secret the crooked lawyer who instructs her to pursue the trail, the meatpacker, the silent partners in the racetrack, even Dorie herself. Layers of lies, pretext and disguise must be peeled back to solve an old mystery before thugs succeed in doing more than simply beating her up. After a somewhat sluggish start, the pace accelerates rapidly, as Dorie moves from hospital to racetrack, to jazz clubs, wisecracking all the way. With a blurb praising Dorie's appeal from Sue Grafton, McClendon (author also of the Alix Thorssen series) seems well poised to make this new series a hit. (Mar. 13)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Dorie Lennox, an operative for a PI in Kansas City during the early days of World War II, tails a bargirl for a possibly mob-connected client. Dorie's prey flings herself off a bridge, but the client wants to continue the case. A ransacked room and personal threats galvanize Dorie to action, especially when the client's jealous wife apparently receives a call from the dead jumper, whom Dorie had viewed in the morgue. A convincing re-creation of time, place, and a hard-nosed, emotionally scarred heroine; for all collections. [This is the first in a new series by the author of the Alix Thorssen mysteries, e.g., Nordic Nights.DEd.]
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 492 KB
• Print Length: 288 pages
• Publisher: Thalia Press (January 25, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004KZPISU
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,460 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars So atmosheric one feels like they are in 1939 February 14, 2001

By Harriet Klausner #1 HALL OF FAME

Format:Hardcover

By 1939 the Great Depression is all but over and prohibition has been repealed. President Roosevelt wants to keep the country out of the latest Great War in Europe even as many of his countrymen want to serve overseas. Dorrie Lennox is somewhat concerned with global events, but is more interested in her work as a private detective. Her partner is Amos Haddan, a victim of mustard gas that haunts him two decades after the war to end all wars ended.

Dorie's latest engagement involves tailing Iris Jackson to see if she is cheating on her boyfriend. She follows Iris for a week only to observe her target commit suicide by jumping off the Hannibal Bridge. Stunned by the event, the case continues when her client hires Dorrie to conduct a thorough investigation of Iris' life. However, a twist occurs when the police charge her mentor Amos with murder, leaving it to Dorrie to find out who set them up so smoothly.

Lise McClendon, author of the Thorssen mysteries, shows how versatile her talent is with a new series set in 1939 that uses period idioms and vernacular to set the tone. This technique along with historical references provides a glimpse at the atmosphere of the era just before America's entry into World War II. The complex, cleverly crafted mystery keeps reader's attention throughout the novel. Dorie is hard-boiled on the outside yet tender on the inside, as she has risen above some tough breaks in her life. Ms. McClendon has started a new winning series that will please historical mystery fans.

Harriet Klausner

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Girl with the Switchblade June 16, 2002

By Edward P. Zaruk

Format:Hardcover

Travel back in time to a simpler life when escape from poverty was part of the American dream. That road to success sometimes took a drastic fall, in the case of Iris Jackson, it is off the Hannibal bridge.

For P.I. Dorie Lennox, the investigation becomes personal when she is threatened and told to quit the case. As she continues digging for answers, more people enter her investigation, each creating questions that need answers. Answers that always seem to come with pain. Quite often to Lennox's body.

Lise McClendon has captured the flavour of prewar Kansas City and blended it with exciting intrigue that carries us along to its emotion-filled conclusion.

This book becomes a splendid page turner as the mystery deepens. It is really quite a decent read.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Lennox is Tough, Tender and Terrific September 14, 2002

By Carol Abbott

Format:Hardcover

I have lived in Kansas City nearly all my life, so I loved the fact that Lise McClendon's gritty private eye Dorie Lennox has taken up her profession in a rough and tumble 1939 K.C. that I had only heard whispered about. In 1939, The Mob was learning about how to fleece the citizens in other ways after prohibition; the average citizen was scrambling to live on slim wages and a glimmer of hope after the big depression; gambling and race tracks were legal, leaving the cops to find other ways to hassle the citizens, both crooked and law-abiding.

While tailing a beautiful blonde, Lennox witnesses the girl's suicide by jumping from a bridge into the Missouri River. The death of this woman, the girlfriend of a client who doesn't seem all that broken up when he hears of her death, puts Lennox onto a mystery that includes missing money, corrupt lawyers, murdered witnesses, infidelity and double crosses.

Lennox has to mix it up with some mighty shady characters, some of whom definitely do not treat her like a lady, but slowly she digs up the secrets in a desperate attempt to save the life of her mentor and partner, who has been fitted for a frame by some very cleaver, devious crooks.

There is a definite film noir feel about this book, and I really enjoyed it. I'd like to see other books about Dorie Lennox. She is a really cool character.

More About the Author

The blank page. A canvas. A rough stone ready to be carved. What is there to say about the creative process that hasn't been said? Only that writing stories, for me, is a crazy personal mission to get these people out of my head. I get obsessed with them and they won't let me sleep. When I don't write I sometimes feel like I'm floating through life, barely touching the ground. When I'm writing, as weird as this sounds, I feel more present in the real world. For a fiction writer, the story is where it all makes sense.

More than anything I love characters. My newest novel, ALL YOUR PRETTY DREAMS, is full of quirky people who I find fascinating and even a bit charming. The way a person presents himself to the world, how the world reacts to that presentation, is only one aspect of who they are. The other aspect, the inner thoughts, dreams, and aspirations, is what story is made of. Without those dreams a character is flat and uninspiring. I try to delve into each person, even if it's only for a little bit.

I hope your reading journey takes you places you never imagined. I'm getting all tingly just thinking about it.

---

Lise McClendon writes fiction from her home in Montana. She is the author of nine novels, short stories, and articles. In 1997 she wrote and directed the short film, The Hoodoo Artist, featured at the Telluride Indiefest. She has served on the national boards of directors for Mystery Writers of America and International Association of Crime Writers/North America. She is on the faculty of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference and co-presents the workshop for writers, Truly Richly Deeply: Structure and Depth in the Novel.

Lise also writes under the pseudonym Rory Tate. The first Rory Tate thriller is JUMP CUT.

"After thirty years writing fiction has become as necessary as breathing. Finding the essential story in the novel, chipping away the rock until the solid core is revealed, is an adventure and a joy."