Murder Room
6 total works
'Vera Caspary and others were the forerunners of Gillian Flynn, Megan Abbott, Laura Lippmann and of course, Paula Hawkins' Irish Times
Renowned painter Henry Leveret is found shot dead in his downtown studio, and his estranged son, Michael, returns to his family and his father's circle of friends in order to try to find out who killed him.
There are plenty of suspects: his gallery manager, Chandler Sprague, who is in love with Henry's widow; his wealthy heiress assistant Janet Altheim, who was in love with him; and her lover Bruno, who resented Henry are just a few on Michael's list.
But Leveret was writing a biography of sorts, his own confession, when he was shot. Was he about to reveal something, a secret that cost him his life?
Agnes receives few compliments, and Henry Preble is not so bad-looking even if he does have a reputation for cornering girls at work. In the eyes of the world, knowing that you're on the shelf at twenty-four can do strange things to a girl. So strange that you might wake up one morning with almost no recollection of the previous night's events . . . Published for the first time in the UK, The Gardenia, the basis for Fritz Lang's 1953 classic Hollywood noir film The Blue Gardenia, is a gripping story of suspense and a brilliant exposé of the press sensationalism of 1950s America.
This volume also contains Out of the Blue, which was made into a comedy film in 1947 starring George Brent and Carole Landis.
It's 1920s Chicago, and Louise and Evvie, who have known each other since school, share an apartment. Worldly Evvie, a painter and dancer - supposedly married at seventeen and then divorced - is living on her alimony. Louise is a successful advertising copywriter and in love with her boss. Flouting the Prohibition, they party and enjoy a drink, and like the company of men. They're independent, making their own way in the world, beyond the confines of marriage and motherhood.
But Louise's life is rudely interrupted by the brutal murder of Evvie - a crime that involves family, friends and Chicago itself.
Kate and Allan Royce are driving home from a party in Westport, Connecticut one night when they see a girl in a beautiful but muddied dress wandering in the road and stop to pick her up. She is suffering from amnesia, so they name her Elizabeth X and take her into their home while the police try to establish her identity.
They are left in peace, until first a couple claim her as their daughter and then a psychiatrist arrives to say that she has escaped from his clinic. What does seem certain is that she is the child of wealthy parents.
But who really is Elizabeth X, and what has happened to her?
Contains four novellas: Stranger in the House; Sugar and Spice; The Murder in the Stork Club; Ruth.
In these deftly woven noir novellas, Vera Caspary draws on her own rich, independent life as a woman at a time of great social change, including her own experience of Manhattan's Stork Club, which, from 1929 to 1965, was one of the most prestigious nightclubs in the world.
The title novella The Murder in the Stork Club features working-class detective Joe Collins, who is married to Sara Haworth, a writer of radio mysteries who belongs in Stork Club café society. Joe has to try to clear Sara's name when an ex-lover is murdered shortly after she has dinner with him.
It was the party of a lifetime - but she never arrived...
'Vera Caspary is an expert at suspense and suspicion' New York Times
When popular young schoolteacher Nina Redfield reports to police the whereabouts of Bushie Neal, a criminal on the run, she sets off a chain of events over which she has no control.
Nina is about to leave for a Hallowe'en party at a friend's house. An escort is sent to collect her, so it's no surprise to Nina when a masked man in a Harlequin costume calls for her. But Nina and her escort never reach the party . . .
Could her past association with Bushie's sworn enemy Nick Brazza have any connection to her disappearance? And has she been spirited to safety - or further into danger?