Mood Indigo

by Ed Ifkovic

She was 1932 Broadway's newest sensation. Then she was murdered.
Three years after the Crash that ushered in the Great Depression, Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright Edna Ferber finds herself a guest at Noël Coward's lavish birthday party. The British wit, enjoying the Christmas holiday season in New York and bracing for a trip to Cleveland in the new year, has filled his room with rich, famous folks whose lives continue in stark contrast to those being lived out in the city's streets and poorer neighborhoods.
Edna is haunted by the dark landscape of Manhattan outside Coward's elegant rooms: the snake-like breadlines, the shanty village in Central Park, the gaunt apple sellers in threadbare suits on freezing sidewalks. She has yet to be introduced to the Automat where a few cents are the difference between nourishment and starvation.
Among those who've kept fortune intact is Dougie Maddox, the financially astute but socially naïve only son of a Fifth Avenue dynasty. His widowed mother, known as Lady Maud, has kept the thirty-five-year-old on a short leash, but Dougie has crossed paths with Belinda Ross, the new Broadway songbird. He's mesmerized by her, a woman flagrantly courted by other men. But Belinda seems besotted by Dougie. Gossip flourishes—she has a shadowy past and a producer brother anxious to break onto the Great White Way.
When Belinda is found strangled late one night in a Times Square Automat, jealous, hot-tempered Dougie is the prime suspect. But Noël, who had befriended him, and Edna, who likes him, team up to clear Dougie's name. Their investigation inevitably takes them deep into Belinda's circle and her past.
As the crowds in Time Square ready for a half-hearted New Year's celebration, are Noël and Edna watching the last act of a New York Othello, or is there some other killer-maybe more than one-afoot on the icy pavements of New York City?

• ISBN10: 146420943X
• ISBN13: 9781464209437
• Publish Date: 2 February 2018 (first published 2 January 2018)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Poisoned Pen Press
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[annieb123]

Originally published on my blog: Nonstop Reader.

This is a new (fictional) mystery featuring Edna Ferber and Noel Coward set in depression era New York. Written by Ed Ifkovic and published by Poisoned Pen Press, it's 264 pages and available in ebook, hardcover and paperback formats.

I had some trepidation going into this book. Writing even fictionalized versions of Edna Ferber and Noel Coward takes some serious chutzpah. They were known for being sharply intelligently witty. Ferber was a long-time member of the Algonquin Round Table... I needn't have worried. The dialogue is very well written and stylish. The plotting is engaging and well paced. If some of the plot twists are telegraphed, it doesn't detract from the beautiful writing and meticulous period research. The descriptions (and there are many) of depression era heartbreak and weariness are starkly written and compelling.

To me, the actual mystery was secondary to the writing and descriptions. I read this one as a standalone and was impressed enough to go back and hunt down the earlier books in the series. I really hope he continues with Edna and Noël, this was a very good book. There are a bunch of books with real historical people fictionalized into amateur sleuths (including royals, criminals and other literary figures), and this is a very good one.

Five stars

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.