How To Marry A Murderer [Mass Market Paperback]

Particularly the Manhattan/Greenwich Village fifties. This is one of the more unusual mystery genres out there -- a campy noir fifties mystery -- I only know of one other mystery writer who sets her mysteries in this era.

The "detective" in the series is Paige Turner (her parents didn't name her that -- she married a man named Turner who died in Korea), who works as a writer, editor, coffee maker and fetcher, and all-around grunt for a real life crime story magazine. Her boss is lazy and she gets taunted and harassed by most of the men she works with. She longs to write true crime stories and in pursuit of that, gets mixed up in murders. In this story, a famous television actress comes to her for help because she believes someone is trying to kill her -- and she thinks that it's someone close to her. Paige has a problem in that she promised her homicide detective boyfriend not to get involved in murder investigations, but Paige reasons that no-one has been murdered, have they? Well, not to begin with.

This is a campy fifties, where half the fun is being amused at the behavior of the characters, which include the Paige's best friend, a beatnik artist neighbor Abby, who says "I dig" and believes in free love. Abby's boyfriend is a beat poet who writes very bad and obscure poetry that he takes very seriously and recites at beatnik bars in the Village.

The plotting is pretty good and there's humor. The only thing that detracts from my ability to like Paige Turner is her habit of lying to all and sundry, including friends and boyfriends, if that's what she needs to do. She's doing it more in this book than either of the previous two.

I also think that the sexism and racism are anachronistic to some extent in the way they're portrayed in this series. I don't think that the people of the time were as outraged as the detective-character in this book is. For them, this was normal.

But otherwise, an enjoyable read and an escape to Manhattan in the fifties, where women wear hats and white gloves and the "Negro" is expected to defer to all whites, and women are expected to do the grunt work (except that which is relegated to the "Negro"). It keeps you from getting too nostalgic for those times, although there's still a romance about a night out at the Stork Club and being in the real Village of legend...

I have read all of Amanda Matetsky's books and I think this is the best one yet. Paige Turner is so much fun and her sidekick Abby is just icing on the cake! What I like about Matetsky's books is that I NEVER know who the murderer is going to turn out to be... she keeps me guessing all the way until the end, unlike many other mystery authors I have read. Add to that the continuous laughter I experience all through the story, and I end up putting the latest Paige Turner mystery at the top of my reading list very time.

Paige Turner has been susceptible to wisecracks regarding her name since the day she took Turner as her last name, and even more so since she began working for DARING DETECTIVE magazine, a mere five years ago. It's no surprise either, considering Paige works with a group of belligerent men with egos the size of Manhattan, and spends her days turning pages - newspapers, journals, articles; you name it, and she's turned it. But there's one thing Paige has going for her, and that's her savvy street smarts, and talent for detecting trouble. Which is why superstar Ginger Allen - the second most popular red-haired TV star in America - seeks Paige's help when she realizes that someone is trying to kill her. With a little investigating, Paige begins to think that Ginger is simply a paranoid celebrity, who has been the victim of various dangerous coincidences - such as being pushed in front of a bus, and having her highball poisoned. But when Paige hears word that Ginger is actually dead - pushed from the balcony of her high-rise apartment building, she knows that Ginger's concerns were true. Now, as the newspapers describe Ginger's death as a suicide, Paige continues her investigation - much to the chagrin of her Detective boyfriend, Dan Street - to uncover a collection of clues that point the finger at any of six people. It's now up to Paige to figure out which of these six people killed Ginger - and what they had to gain from her death - before she ends up next on the killer's hit-list, and loses the story that could easily launch her writing career at DARING DETECTIVE.

There is rarely a mystery series that grabs me from beginning to end, but that is the reaction I have whenever I pick up one of Amanda Matetsky's PAIGE TURNER novels. Paige is a brazen, brave, intelligent, warm character, whose wit - and worries - litter every page, making the reader feel as if she is a real person - not just a fiction character. Her friends - the vivacious vixen, Abby; and the hunky Detective, Dan Street; along with the various aggravating co-workers she must put up with on a daily basis, are hilarious and truly add to the story. But it's the 1950's New York City/Greenwich Village backdrop that keep the adventures flowing and will make readers - young and old - long for the good old days of dime store novels, and five dollar pumps. Humor and mystery collide in this endearing, amateur sleuth, trip down memory lane novel from Amanda Matetsky!

Erika Sorocco
Book Review Columnist for The Community Bugle Newspaper

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  4.8 out of 5 stars