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

Mood Indigo is a jazz age delight, complete with two stars of the era - Noel Coward and Edna Ferber.  Their world is one where austerity stands besides privilege and the idle rich follow their dreams.  From Broadway to breadlines, Ifkovic portrays a vibrant and volatile world.  Dougie Maddox is a financially astute but socially naive heir to a 5th Ave dynasty. He loves Belinda Ross, an up and coming star, passionately and unreservedly. His jealousy is well known.  When she is found strangled at an automat - Dougie is the prime suspect.  He wants Edna and Noel to find out the truth.

Ifkovic does an excellent job breathing life into his characters. Using historical figures in a work of fiction can be a challenge, but he does a good job and the story is an interesting one.  It can be a bit slow going at times, but on the whole Mood Indigo is well done.

4 / 5

I received a copy of Mood Indigo from the publisher and Netgalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

—  Crittermom

Mood Indigo is Ed Ifkovic’s ninth installment in the series featuring the famed novelist and playwright Edna Ferber and her coterie of New York society friends, most importantly Noel Coward. In Mood Indigo, Ifkovic wonders what might happen to true love if the world is filled with Iagos. Edna first meets Belinda and Dougie, our Desdemona and Othello, as Noel Coward’s Christmas party. They are obnoxiously loud and with far too many public displays of affection. Glowering onlookers mention that Belinda is a fortune to fortune gold digger and sure enough there is an ugly confrontation with a former beau.

Edna might not care so much, but she comes to see Belinda perform and realizes she has a real talent. She glimpses moments of emotional honesty in Belinda’s face, realizing that she might actually love Dougie and be exhausted by his constant insecurities and jealousy. Dougie is a poor excuse for an Othello though. He’s a child of privilege and pampering who at thirty-five is still dandled on his mother’s knee. He’s never had to grow up and is grasping and demanding as a child. Complicating the plot, Dougie’s mother is a snob, though she denies it, and wants Belinda gone. Then there is Belinda’s brother, her Svengali who wants his own portion of her.

When she is murdered, Dougie is the obvious suspect, but Edna can certainly imagine a range of other suspects. When Dougie is murdered, it’s suddenly more complicated. Was it a simple robbery as the police think, which would allow them to keep Dougie in the frame for Belinda? Or was it revenge by someone who thinks Dougie killed Belinda? Or did Dougie’s killer also kill Belinda? Well, there’s no one better suited to find out than Edna Ferber.

This is the first I have read in this series and was not put off by it being out of order. I will likely read more in the series. There’s a wry wit I enjoy and all the name-dropping and cameos are fun. Of course, if you’re Edna Ferber, you’re not name-dropping, you’re the name that gets dropped, but still the rich and famous of the Jazz Age pass through with quips and little character portraits that are a delight.

The conflict and the murder in this book hang on the idea that men “own” women. The “If I can’t have her, no one can” idea permeates this book. It simmers with jealousy, romantic and professional. It’s not Ifkovic’s fault that systemic misogyny persuades men that only they have romantic agency, that a woman must reciprocate a man’s love. That is on us, not the author nor the characters. Still, it’s sad reading this book about an era nearly a century past and realizing how little we have progressed.

I received an e-galley of Mood Indigo from the publisher through NetGalley.

Mood Indigo at Poisoned Pen Press
Ed Ifkovic author site

This a black/white book, I mean the main colours are white, the snow/the sky, and black, the poors, the Depression. It shows how New York was before the New Deal and how the rich and the poor shared similar spaces but rarely met.
It begins as a comedy of manners more than a mystery, the high class settings with celebrities like Edna Ferber and Noel Coward. The mystery is on the psychological side, looking at hidden motivations and secrets.
It is really enjoyable and gives a lot of food for thought.
Very good and really recommended.
Many thanks to Poison Pen and Netgalley

Mood Indigo is a mixed bag. Your appreciation depends on whether and how well your preferences align with its best features.

As its main character, it gives us Edna Ferber, the novelist and playwright of So Big (one of my favorite books) et al., and Noel Coward partying extensively and interviewing multiple people multiple times with the express goal of exonerating one of their circle of friends of murdering his starlet girlfriend. Mood Indigo is the ninth in the Edna Ferber series, but I saw no indication that there were facts or a back story I was missing. Note that readers seeking a whodunit may well be frustrated by the pace, the plot and the resolution of the key crime, that starlet murder.

On the other hand, Mood Indigo presents New York City, 1932, three years into the Depression. The majority of the key characters are the moneyed, over-the-top rich of Manhattan. There may be a point or two when you wish the body count was higher, given the appeal of these characters. Ahem. Nonetheless, as Ferber and Coward trek to and fro through midtown and out into Connecticut for a road trip, this novel presents a detailed, haunting picture of starvation and need. Hours-long soup and bread lines. (Upwards of 50 breadlines served more than 50,000 per day in the Lower East Side alone.)

Families hovering over fires lit in barrels.

Hooverville.

33% unemployment. Shantytowns. Prohibition nearing its end, but not dead yet. Apples sold by the needy on street corners.

I was familiar with the facts about the Depression, generally, but Mood Indigo is at its best when it displays -- like nothing else in fiction I’ve read -- the suffering and reality of the Depression experienced by those living in New York City in 1932. Probably 15% of the book from the halfway point to the end focuses on revealing these facts. If you are more interested in the descriptions of elegant parties with Irving Berlin, Laurence Olivier and more, there’s that, too, and you can blow past the bread lines at your option.

The banter reminiscent of a lame version of a Thin Man movie? It wasn’t my cup of tea, but your tolerance and enjoyment may be greater than mine.

Access this link for stunning photos of NYC circa 1932, including some bracing shots of workers building the Empire State Building and other skyscrapers – no protective gear in sight.

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/gr...

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-copy of this novel.

Ed Ifkovic's MOOD INDIGO is much more than a light mystery novel with High Society characters like Noel Coward and Edna Ferber. It was a social history lesson for me that very succinctly brought the pain and despair of the Great Depression in to sharp focus for me.

The author's descriptions of New York's breadlines, its struggling small theaters, and its no longer wealthy businessmen were perfect foils for Noel Coward's high life and witticisms. The characters in this book were very real to me. I am not familiar with Edna Ferber's social importance in Manhattan during the 20's, but MOOD INDIGO put me in her apartment, in her milieu, and even made her amateur sleuthing seem logical. Not easy !

I was "in" from Chapter One right to the close and thoroughly enjoyed this new Edna Ferber mystery. I am grateful to NetGalley for providing me with a complimentary copy in return for an honest review. (and no, I did not have a clue "who dun it" until I read the ending).

This book was fabulous such fun!
It is December 1932 and award winning writer Edna Ferber, a close friend of Noel Coward is enjoying one of his famed parties when the new glamorous theatre star Belinda Ross and lover Dougie Maddox are first seen.
They are a passionate couple-openly affectionate yet often jealous and arguing but it all adds to the wonderful atmosphere of Manhattan's showbiz glitz littered with actors, writers and exhuberance. As Christmas approaches and Edna and Noel become encircled in the lives of this couple and their friends and families Belinda is suddenly found strangled..
The author sets the scene well with everyone we meet seemingly a suspect! Edna, previously a journalist decides to investigate dragging along Coward (unbelievably but superbly narrated by the English wit ). The setting of a new Manhattan of skyscrapers rising against the poverty of the post Wall Street Crash in America is superbly and believably described. The 'old' money in the southern states and mansions vying with the new property boom, the bootleggers fighting the Prohibition and the growth of celebrity status for writers and actors as Broadway leads to Hollywood is very evocative.
The plot flows really well. There are some great twists and the secondary characters (I particularly like the wonderful Lady Maud) shine out as fully formed people in the whole novel.
This might the start of a great series with amateur sleuth Edna Ferber. If so I'd be delighted to read more and hope the author holds onto some tight and exciting writing to bring that theatre/film world more into our lives. Could make a good TV drama too! Noel Coward would think it 'marvellous'!

This is the 9th in the Edna Ferber mystery series. Autumn, 1932 - New York City still reeling from the Depression in many sectors and many theatres are shuttered, between money problems and/or the growing preference for films over live-action plays. But there is a new songbird in town - Belinda Ross has been the star of her brother's rag-tag production in Hell's Kitchen, but she has stepped up without him into the giddy lights of Broadway, and she is without doubt a Star to be watched. Dougie Maddox, a very protected 35 with family fortune still intact, falls -hard- for Belinda, and pulls away from the tight control of his mother Lady Maud to squire Belinda about town. When she is found strangled with Dougie's scarf at the Times Square Automat in downtown Manhattan, the crime and criminal seems obvious.

But too obvious, for Edna. Our voice is that of Edna Ferber, Pulitzer prize winning playwright and novelist, accompanied by Britisher Noel Coward in her search for the truth. Many of the supporting cast are names you will recognize if you watch old films. Even if you don't, this is an exciting tale and the look into depression era NYC where there is no class left between the haves and the out of works and homeless, is very telling. This is an excellent mystery, one I can gladly recommend to family and friends.

I received a free electronic copy of this historical novel from Netgalley, Ed Ifkovic, and Poisoned Pen Press in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

I would like to thank Netgalley and Poisoned Pen Press for an advance copy of Mood Indigo, the 9th novel in the historical Edna Ferber series.

It is 1932 and renowned author Edna Ferber is enjoying a party at Noel Coward's flat when the mood is spoiled by a fight between the latest Broadway star, Belinda Ross, her boyfriend, Dougie Madden, and her former boyfriend, Cyrus Meerdom. It sets Edna thinking about their relationship but no more until Belinda is found murdered and Dougie becomes the prime suspect.

Mood Indigo is a difficult novel to review as it is such a mixed bag. This is the first novel I have read in the series so I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought from the blurb that it would be a more plot driven novel than it is as it is essentially a character driven novel with Edna trying to understand Belinda and sort through the conflicting views she is given. To put this in context the murder doesn't occur until a third of the way into the novel. I can't say that this approach to crime fiction really interests me as I prefer a straightforward whodunnit.

On the other hand I found the period detail fascinating. The contrast between the monied circles where Edna moves and the effects of the depression on the majority of the population is stark. Mr Ifkovic does a sterling job of portraying the misery of those times. I found it ironic that the very rich Edna despises the less well off who want to get on and prosper. I must admit that I know very little about the artistic community in 1932 New York. Obviously I recognise Noel Coward and Irving Berlin as real people but I had no idea that Edna Ferber was not only a real person but an extremely successful one. I spent much of the early part of the novel checking on all the names to work out which are real and which are fictional as I felt a little lost in a scenario where everyone except me knows everyone.

Mood Indigo is an interesting and informative read from a historical perspective but the plotting is not really to my taste.