Lee, Gypsy Rose -- The G String Murders (1941)

aka The Strip Tease Murders, aka Lady of Burlesque

Everyone seems to agree that Craig Rice was responsible for this book, but I like to hope that Gypsy Rose (born Rose Louise Hovick) contributed at least some of the atmosphere and dialogue. The book is steeped in atmosphere, and after reading it one could easily find one's way around backstage at any of the big burlesque theatres in the US of the 30s and 40s. These are large enterprises -- entertainment factories with non-stop shows -- and the strippers like Lee who got their start in them were expected to sing and dance in the chorus and help out with the comedy as well. Shows were continuous and it was a wonderful training ground for talent -- if it didn't kill you.

The first victim in this case is Lolita La Verne, an unpopular stripper who is found -- after a long, slow start -- in a sealed bathroom, strangled with her own G-string. The pace picks up from there and soon there is another victim. Gypsy, the narrator, is nearly the third. In true Rice style, everyone contributes their bit, both to the detection and to the obfuscation that makes it necessary. Lots of showbiz dialogue, lots of atmosphere, and some genuine humour, but no attempt to hide the desperate poverty and squalor that lay behind -- and ahead of -- many of the performers. A bonus prize to anyone who can actually follow the plot.

Jon.

As I stated on the Craig Rice page this book has been proven NOT to be her work.  It is clearly mentioned in letters between Gypsy Rose Lee and Craig Rice and published in the 2009 biography Stripping Gypsy: The Life of Gypsy Rose Lee that the book is the work of Lee alone.  Rice helped write the screenplay for the movie version (Lady of Burlesque) and Noralee Frankel, the biographer, is sure that this helped fuel the decades long rumor that Rice ghosted the original book. Simply not true.  Read the biography and see the letters for yourself.  Rice marvelled at Lee's ingenuity:  "How did you do it?" she wrote in astonishment.

I have removed the Rice tag and added the proper author here. At long last!

J.F. Norris