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Easy to Kill

Page history last edited by PBworks 15 years, 9 months ago

Footner, Hulbert - Easy to Kill (1931)

 

When Great Gatsbies Go Bad...

 

Madame Rosika Storey is smart, attractive, resourceful and knows which fork to use in polite society. As a dinner guest she would be perfect. As a detective, alas, she shows no ability whatsoever, and only the persevering way in which victims and villains plant clues under her nose makes it possible for her to make any progress at all. In Easy to Kill she is called in by a society couple at Cape Cod to investigate a coercion racket. Notes are being left on the pillows of wealthy invalids, threatening to scare them to death unless payments are made. Howard Van Tassel and his wife believe the perpetrator is their nephew, Nick Van Tassel -- and luckily they are right, since Mme Storey would probably have been quite incapable of figuring this out for herself. She slips up, and Howard Van Tassel meets his death; but fortunately Nick invites Mme Storey and her narrator-secretary Miss Brickley to stay with him, where the clues are. Even this doesn't help her very much, but happily for Mme Storey's future career prospects, the police are even more incompetent than she is, and eventually -- after narrowly escaping death -- she is able to come up with a Cunning Plan, and the story lurches to its bungled conclusion.

 

I would have no hesitation in proposing Mme Storey for the Boneheaded Detectives' Club; but the narrative itself is moderately interesting, the characters are lively, and Footner's egalitarian politics make an interesting contrast to the more snobbish approach of writers like Van Dine. Although the book seems about ten years out of date for 1931, as a thriller it still retains some value.

 

Easy to Kill should shortly be available from Gutenberg Australia.

 

Jon.

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