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What was he going to say to the department store Santa Claus about the emissary whom he had sent to Gramercy Park and who was now residing in the deep freeze?
I picked up a bunch of old pulp mysteries and thrillers at Bouchercon, and this was one of them. It was not good, but it was extremely diverting by way of being completely nuts - something I did not expect from the title, cover, or blurb, which made it seem much more normal.
Here is the blurb: When lovely, wealthy young Jennifer Clay flew from California to New York, she plunged into a world of danger she had never dreamed existed. Her former college roommate, Mary Bostwick, had mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind a multi-million dollar legacy. Jennifer vowed to find her friend. At Jennifer's side was a handsome lawyer she could not bring herself to trust. Blocking her path was a web of sinister deception. And shadowing her every step, moving ever closer, was a murderer who had killed twice and was poised to strike again...
This blurb is correct but misleading. Most of the book is from the POV of Foley's series detective, Mr. Potter, a wealthy young man with a big house and a live-in housekeeper.
He comes home from a vacation and finds that an unknown person is living on the top floor of his house but keeps not getting around to investigating this. He eventually asks his housekeeper, who says it's her sick mother. He almost immediately begins to doubt this, as the unknown hider in the house is also stealing his Scotch and cigarettes, but doesn't do anything about it.
Mr. Potter is hired to find a missing heiress, Mary Bostwick. If she's not found within three days, the entire fortune goes to a different set of heirs. Jennifer shows up about a third of the way in.
Mr. Potter finds an unknown corpse in his living room. Since he's in a hurry to find Mary Bostwick and thinks being investigated will delay him, he sticks the corpse in the freezer. A clue leads to a department store Santa, and thus to the immortal line, "I have to see Santa Claus about a dead man."
Santa is missing Mary's uncle, Bostwick, who sent the dead guy to Mr. Potter with a message. Mr. Potter immediately shows Bostwick the freezer corpse:
Mr. Potter explained why he had hidden the body and Bostwick accepted his explanation without question.
I would have questions.
Mr. Potter FINALLY goes to check out the hider in his house and finds him (an unknown bearded dude) sleeping. He goes downstairs to demand an explanation from his housekeeper but was sidetracked by the ringing of the phone. He then has a conversation in which he's about to ask, then gets distracted by a thought and wanders off.
Meanwhile, we learn that a male ballet dancer deliberately dropped his ballerina partner and broke her neck because she was getting more attention than him so he "got rid of his rival."
...that's not how that works.
For literally no reason whatsoever, Jennifer decides that a missing college student is probably a prisoner behind the Iron Curtain and maybe his girlfriend, the also-missing heiress Mary Bostwick, was kidnapped by Communists.
This is UTTERLY out of the blue.
Meanwhile, Mr. Potter again chats with his increasingly weirdly behaving housekeeper without mentioning the hider in the house who is definitely not anyone's mom.
Jennifer gets kidnapped and rescued, one of the rival heir's maids is murdered, and Mr. Potter randomly causes a riot in a department store by spanking a stranger's misbehaving kid.
SPOILERS include the immortal line "What makes you think you have leprosy?"
Most of the way through the book, Mr. Potter finally gets around to asking about the hider in the house. The housekeeper says it's her nephew. Mr. Potter gets distracted before he can ask her why or tell her to get rid of him. But later on he checks and sees that he's gone anyway.
MEANWHILE it turns out that the ballet dancer and his boyfriend, who is one of the rival heirs. conspired to murder Mary Bostwick so the boyfriend could inherit instead of her. But nothing came of this plot and Mary and her boyfriend are still missing.
For literally no reason that I could understand, Mr. Potter takes everyone to some cottage that have never been mentioned before, where they find Mary and her boyfriend! THEY WERE THE HIDERS IN THE HOUSE ALL ALONG!
Mary's boyfriend is the housekeeper's nephew!
Mary and boyfriend were in hiding because he thinks he has leprosy and will be deported (he's Italian) if either of them are ever seen again!
He thinks this because a random doctor stopped him on the street, pointed to his rash, diagnosed him, and threatened to report him. It seemed plausible because he grew up with Filipino guerrillas after his parents were killed at Pearl Harbor and one of them had leprosy!
But really, the lawyer who drew up the will leaving money to Mary just pretended to be a doctor to scare them into hiding so a different heir (not the ballet dancer's boyfriend, that was a totally unrelated plot) would inherit and they'd split the money!
The reason Mr. Potter hid the corpse in the freezer was that Mary would be disinherited if she wasn't found in time, and he'd be delayed in his search if he had to answer questions about a random corpse on his floor.
THAT WAS WHY A RANDOM DUDE WAS MURDERED IN HIS HOUSE! The lawyer thought the simplest way to delay him was to murder some dude and dump him in the house!
I can't say I didn't get my money's worth but, similarly to the magnet murder book, it's a wildly coincidental and overly convoluted plot that only works because characters don't behave like actual humans. And also, make correct deductions with literally no basis.
Oh and it's not leprosy. It's an allergy to his new shaving cream.
Here is the author's Wikipedia biography; like the book, it takes a sudden turn: Elinore Denniston was an American writer of more than 40 mystery novels under the pseudonym Rae Foley. She wrote other mysteries as Helen K. Maxwell and Dennis Allan. Elinore Denniston was born on September 20, 1900, in North Dakota. She worked as an assistant to the playwright Theresa Helburn. She also worked as an assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt.
I picked up a bunch of old pulp mysteries and thrillers at Bouchercon, and this was one of them. It was not good, but it was extremely diverting by way of being completely nuts - something I did not expect from the title, cover, or blurb, which made it seem much more normal.
Here is the blurb: When lovely, wealthy young Jennifer Clay flew from California to New York, she plunged into a world of danger she had never dreamed existed. Her former college roommate, Mary Bostwick, had mysteriously disappeared, leaving behind a multi-million dollar legacy. Jennifer vowed to find her friend. At Jennifer's side was a handsome lawyer she could not bring herself to trust. Blocking her path was a web of sinister deception. And shadowing her every step, moving ever closer, was a murderer who had killed twice and was poised to strike again...
This blurb is correct but misleading. Most of the book is from the POV of Foley's series detective, Mr. Potter, a wealthy young man with a big house and a live-in housekeeper.
He comes home from a vacation and finds that an unknown person is living on the top floor of his house but keeps not getting around to investigating this. He eventually asks his housekeeper, who says it's her sick mother. He almost immediately begins to doubt this, as the unknown hider in the house is also stealing his Scotch and cigarettes, but doesn't do anything about it.
Mr. Potter is hired to find a missing heiress, Mary Bostwick. If she's not found within three days, the entire fortune goes to a different set of heirs. Jennifer shows up about a third of the way in.
Mr. Potter finds an unknown corpse in his living room. Since he's in a hurry to find Mary Bostwick and thinks being investigated will delay him, he sticks the corpse in the freezer. A clue leads to a department store Santa, and thus to the immortal line, "I have to see Santa Claus about a dead man."
Santa is missing Mary's uncle, Bostwick, who sent the dead guy to Mr. Potter with a message. Mr. Potter immediately shows Bostwick the freezer corpse:
Mr. Potter explained why he had hidden the body and Bostwick accepted his explanation without question.
I would have questions.
Mr. Potter FINALLY goes to check out the hider in his house and finds him (an unknown bearded dude) sleeping. He goes downstairs to demand an explanation from his housekeeper but was sidetracked by the ringing of the phone. He then has a conversation in which he's about to ask, then gets distracted by a thought and wanders off.
Meanwhile, we learn that a male ballet dancer deliberately dropped his ballerina partner and broke her neck because she was getting more attention than him so he "got rid of his rival."
...that's not how that works.
For literally no reason whatsoever, Jennifer decides that a missing college student is probably a prisoner behind the Iron Curtain and maybe his girlfriend, the also-missing heiress Mary Bostwick, was kidnapped by Communists.
This is UTTERLY out of the blue.
Meanwhile, Mr. Potter again chats with his increasingly weirdly behaving housekeeper without mentioning the hider in the house who is definitely not anyone's mom.
Jennifer gets kidnapped and rescued, one of the rival heir's maids is murdered, and Mr. Potter randomly causes a riot in a department store by spanking a stranger's misbehaving kid.
SPOILERS include the immortal line "What makes you think you have leprosy?"
Most of the way through the book, Mr. Potter finally gets around to asking about the hider in the house. The housekeeper says it's her nephew. Mr. Potter gets distracted before he can ask her why or tell her to get rid of him. But later on he checks and sees that he's gone anyway.
MEANWHILE it turns out that the ballet dancer and his boyfriend, who is one of the rival heirs. conspired to murder Mary Bostwick so the boyfriend could inherit instead of her. But nothing came of this plot and Mary and her boyfriend are still missing.
For literally no reason that I could understand, Mr. Potter takes everyone to some cottage that have never been mentioned before, where they find Mary and her boyfriend! THEY WERE THE HIDERS IN THE HOUSE ALL ALONG!
Mary's boyfriend is the housekeeper's nephew!
Mary and boyfriend were in hiding because he thinks he has leprosy and will be deported (he's Italian) if either of them are ever seen again!
He thinks this because a random doctor stopped him on the street, pointed to his rash, diagnosed him, and threatened to report him. It seemed plausible because he grew up with Filipino guerrillas after his parents were killed at Pearl Harbor and one of them had leprosy!
But really, the lawyer who drew up the will leaving money to Mary just pretended to be a doctor to scare them into hiding so a different heir (not the ballet dancer's boyfriend, that was a totally unrelated plot) would inherit and they'd split the money!
The reason Mr. Potter hid the corpse in the freezer was that Mary would be disinherited if she wasn't found in time, and he'd be delayed in his search if he had to answer questions about a random corpse on his floor.
THAT WAS WHY A RANDOM DUDE WAS MURDERED IN HIS HOUSE! The lawyer thought the simplest way to delay him was to murder some dude and dump him in the house!
I can't say I didn't get my money's worth but, similarly to the magnet murder book, it's a wildly coincidental and overly convoluted plot that only works because characters don't behave like actual humans. And also, make correct deductions with literally no basis.
Oh and it's not leprosy. It's an allergy to his new shaving cream.
Here is the author's Wikipedia biography; like the book, it takes a sudden turn: Elinore Denniston was an American writer of more than 40 mystery novels under the pseudonym Rae Foley. She wrote other mysteries as Helen K. Maxwell and Dennis Allan. Elinore Denniston was born on September 20, 1900, in North Dakota. She worked as an assistant to the playwright Theresa Helburn. She also worked as an assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt.
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Off a building? Piledrove her during a pas de deux? What is this plot doing in the book?
The lawyer thought the simplest way to delay him was to murder some dude and dump him in the house!
Well, Mr. Potter thought the simplest way not to be delayed in his investigation was to stuff some dude in his freezer! Maybe that's just how people behave in this world!
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"My lawyer murdered someone and dumped him in my house" could have been an entire murder mystery plot on its own, rather than a stray footnote to this one!
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I'm don't think anyone in that book was sufficiently out of touch with reality to have said "I don't believe he's dead" if they'd seen the body, though.
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That Wikipedia bio is a trip.
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I would definitely have questions, but they would probably start with a careful "oh, okay... I'm going out for a cup of tea, do you want anything?" and then a call to the police from a safe distance saying "a man just told me he has a dead man in his attic, and I don't think it would be safe for me to check on it myself." A safe distance and a pay phone, I think, the latter of which shouldn't have been hard to find then/there.
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