Customer Reviews

Secret Agent Girl: A Murder A-Go-Go Mystery

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

 

 

To date, the pseudonymous Rosemary Martin has written three books about Bebe Bennet, a young woman who has left her home, family and roots back in Virginia in order to find fulfillment--and a suitable husband--in New York's Swinging Sixties.

The series is ostensibly no more than entertaining fluff. The first two books were both skillfully executed and amusingly presented--in short, pure guilty pleasure material. In those books, Bebe was a charmer who might have been Thoroughly Modern Millie's granddaughter, and who incorporated aspects of Goldie Hawn in "The Cactus Flower" and Maggie McNamara in "The Moon is Blue." It so happens that I am Bebe's exact contemporary. I knew several young women who had many of Bebe's characteristics and one who might have been Bebe, herself.

The first two books also had something more hidden beneath that neatly crafted fluff: an underlying cleverness that presented the world of the early 1960s not so much as it actually was but as it seemed to be for many of us in our singular inability to see, even to the point of willful blindness, the grimly onrushing crises of Vietnam and civil rights.

This third book is different. The attempt to reconstruct the 60s has shrunk to almost a pro forma performance. There are a few not-so-casually inserted references to movies ("Mary Poppins" is fresh in memory and Sean Connery is James Bond), televison shows (Hugh Downs presides over the "Today Show "and two "hunks" [!] star in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.), songs ("Secret Agent Man"), products (Chatty Cathy, a new doll that requires explanation) and fashions (Bebe's Peter Pan collar), but all this is mere window dressing, none of which brings back the true feel and texture of 1964. For all practical purposes, the book takes place in a sort of generic mystery/romance "NOW."

If the time has become more-or-less generic, so has the plot. One of the gimmicks of this series is that Bebe's boss (and main heart-throb) presides over a different business in each book (as part of a test to determine his worthiness for an inheritance, not that it makes any difference) and Bebe, his executive secretary, moves with him. Here in Book Three, they find themselves in a retail toy store. (An earlier Amazon reviewer has suggested that the model is FAO Schwarz. Well, why not?) This setting provides departments based on different kinds of toys and store personnel who go about in toy-appropriate costumes: train conductor, teddy bear, clown, princess. Once again, this is mere window dressing, for not one element of the story is specifically related to the toy business. If one were to substitute, say, fine stationery for toy trains, and writing instruments for dolls, the business could be converted into an office supply store without any change whatsoever in the plot of the book or of its character-relationships.

As it is with chronology and with setting, so it is with characterization. In this book, Bebe, formerly young, sweet, naive and charming on the outside but constructed of titanium and stainless steel on the inside is reduced to a mere, generic, gushy, even giddy romance heroine:

"I stepped onto the moving stairs, saw Mr. Skidoo [the store clown] watching me from below, and averted my gaze, looking up--and who should be six steps above me but Bradley! With one hand over my mouth, I suppressed a giggle at the sexy view he presented from behind as I almost lost my balance on the escalator." [Page 10]

As cozy mysteries and light romances go, this book isn't bad, but it definitely lacks the spark that distinguished the first two books of the series from the general crowd. It should be noted that this book marks either the end of the series or a major turning point in it, the very same turning point that the great Dorothy L. Sayers faced after the completion of her book, "Gaudy Night," in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. With some curiosity, I wonder if we have seen the end of Bebe Bennett, or whether we shall meet her again, transformed, in Murder-A-Go-Go IV?

Three stars but with still a little hope for the future.

For some reason I didn't realize it was a 1960 oriented story - I got the hint after starting the book and wondering why the characters didn't have cellphones ;) j/k - anyway, the mystery story was OK but the love story was too much of a Cinderella story which I don't enjoy much, boring fairy tale happy ending, I am not saying I was expecting something drastic to happen but ... All the characters get a happy ending? Really?
I give it 2 stars because the mystery was decent although the main character, Bebe, was asking for trouble.

Although it lacks the luster of the first two books in the series, I really enjoyed it! Rosemary Martin gives us a great mystery to solve along with Bebe and a neat ending to her series. I am sad to see the series end! Reviewer Janean Sparks

Bebe and her heartthrob Bradley are working together again at Merryweather's Toy Shoppe on Fifth Avenue. Merryweather's reminds me of FAO Schwartz or a similar toy store. The grand "re-opening" of the toy shop is marred by a crazy, evil clown, Mr. Skidoo, who tries to stick his red nose into people's private lives at every turn. Bebe is especially upset when the clown tells her he knows how she feels about her beloved Bradley. The story was so confusing I just couldn't finish it. but heck, I'd paid $6.99 plus tax for it, so I read the last chapter. The part of the book I did read was more like a romance novel than a mystery. Perhaps this is the last book in the series, given Disneyland-style the ending. I'm not sure that is a bad thing.