Death of a Doll

What a strange and mysterious opening chapter. Slowly but surely I was drawn into this most unusual story. The plot is gradually explained and is in fact very cleverly written. I did of course want to know all the answers but could not guess until the very end. Stick with this one and you will be pleasantly surprised.

I really want to thank the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC of this book. I liked it a lot.

I felt kind of lukewarm about the book for the first chapter or two, but as it went on, I found myself not wanting to stop reading until I got to the end. Something about it really grabbed my attention. The author was able to convey a strong sense of menace and suspense, just by the tone of her writing. The violence in the book is really minimal, but there’s no doubting that there is great wickedness somewhere in the women’s residence in which the story is set.

I was unfamiliar with the author, Hilda Lawrence, and read that this is considered the best of her four mystery novels. I know that I really enjoyed it.

I found myself a bit confused at times by the huge number of characters, and I still wonder why some of them were included. For instance, were three detectives really necessary? There is a private detective and two snoopy old ladies, or at least my impression was that they were old ladies. And that leads into another thing that I noticed. It wasn’t really possible to guess the ages of many of the characters, and consequently, the ending, when it came was even more of a surprise to me than it might have been. However, I don’t think that I could have predicted the ending with any certainty, no matter how much additional information I was given. Despite this the ending was quite believable.

Light, disguise, and blindness, in various forms, are key elements in this atmospheric and rather creepy murder mystery, set in the claustrophobic, somewhat enclosed, world of a New York hostel for young women. It was the third from Hilda Lawrence featuring private detective, Mark East, and his sidekicks, Miss Bessy and Miss Beulah, and was first published in 1947.

It is the most successful of the three. Although it would have benefitted from a little pruning, here the momentum was better maintained. As the plot is more focussed on psychology and character than on detection, this is not one for pure puzzle-lovers. The culprit was not too difficult to spot, but the tension lay in what the next move would be and how a resolution would be reached. There is interest, too, in the various relationships of the women in the residence, particularly that of Miss Brady and Miss Small who “run” the place.

Recommended as very readable and quite engrossing.

Thank you to NetGalley, Agora Books and Crime Classics Advance Readers Club for the digital review copy.

Hope House, a Home for Girls, was a New York City residence run by director Monica Brady, with assistance from social worker Angeline Small. In charge of 70 girls, Miss Small made sure they "slept correctly" and were "properly nourished". "These [are] poor love-starved babies, I must do what I can". Ruth Miller, 29 years old, was a salesperson in the toilet goods department of Blackmans. Ruth shared her excitement with wealthy, regular customer Roberta Sutton. She would be moving to Hope House where she would receive both breakfast and dinner and "all the hot water you want".

Suitcase in hand, shy,quiet Ruth entered Hope House with high expectations. Within minutes, her demeanor radically changed. "...in a sea of strange faces, one face was not strange". "Confidently walking into the future Ruth had come face to face with the past". Two days later, Ruth's body was discovered in the courtyard, presumably having fallen from a seventh floor window. Her death was ruled a suicide.

Roberta Sutton was shocked upon hearing of Ruth's demise. She didn't believe Ruth killed herself and convinced Private Investigator Mark East to investigate. Roberta's two house guests, elderly spinsters Beulah Pond and Bessy Petty were amateur sleuths. Mark had his methods of discovery while Beulah and Bessy contributed a comic element. Beulah decided to gather data at Hope House. She walked into the dwelling with an affected limp thinking that an infirmity would make her appear honest. Upon leaving, she limped on the opposite leg!

One thing was for certain. Ruth saw or heard "something" upon arriving at her new digs. The following day, at the house "costume party", Ruth knew she had been recognized. She had seen the "following eyes". She knew what she had to do. Her suitcase was packed, ready to go!

"Death of a Doll" by Hilda Lawrence was written in 1947. Lawrence created a claustrophobic atmosphere with Miss Brady and Miss Small demanding adherence to rigid rules, a stifling living arrangement bound to create discomfort and suspicion. The first half of the tome set the stage to question Ruth's death. The investigation in the second half was murky and slow moving. Fans of classic crime will enjoy the mystery and suspense from the pen of Hilda Lawrence.

Thank you Agora Books and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Death of a Doll".

This is a vintage murder mystery set in America, hard to get into as it jumps all over the place, and all over the people that populate this story. Yet it has a wonderful charm about it that you just can't put it down, a very different writing style. The book is this month's Crime Classics choice for rediscovering these vintage writers, and I will certainly search out the few other books by Hilda Lawerence.
I certainly recommend reading this book to anyone who is interested in crime classics.

Death of a Doll was first published in 1947. It's the story of Ruth who moved to the city to Hope House. This was a boarding house for women. During this time period, these types of places were much more common than they are today. During a party, Ruth jumps from the building. Suicide or murder? The story unfolds slowly with the investigation of her death. It's confusing at times because of numerous characters. I wish the story had moved a little faster. It's well written and intriguing. There is a menacing creepy vibe to it. The characters are likeable and dynamic together. I enjoyed the story overall. Perfect for readers of vintage crime fiction. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

I have not enjoyed a murder mystery this much in a long time. If my Detection Club afficionados are not listening, I will say that I think Ms. Lawrence wrote puzzle mysteries at least as well as Madama Sayers (gasp!). Well-written suspense is everywhere, even in watching an elevator make its excrutiatingly slow way down, and the reader is compelled to turn the page just to get relief. Forget leaving it until tomorrow. I received the Crime Classics/NetGalley ebook in exchange for this review, but I’m thinking of buying the paper version so I can re-read it in the style it was meant to be read. And I will definitely be looking for more by this writer. Her characters pop with individuality and real life, her settings could not be more vivid (and spooky). The mystery had me guessing right to the end – I suspected one “doll”, then changed to one after another, trying to keep up with new clues as they blossomed. And didn’t quite have it nailed right to the end. My favorite kind. The droll humor had me chuckling out loud. Our socialite amateur sleuth has two old-biddy helpmates, Bessy who loves to drink and Beulah who watches out for her. When Mark East suggests apprehensively that maybe the drinker should be taken home, Beulah says, “Wait till her eyes are pink”. Later when they are discussing the case, Bessy says something about “m-u-r-d-e-r”, adding that you have to spell the word in case someone is listening. To which Beulah replies, “Time. Practically red.” Yet, both ladies are cleverer than they let on. As Mark East says, “They can find a needle in a haystack and thread it with a camel.” If you love Golden Age murder and suspense, with sophisticated humor, then enjoy.

Hope House is a home for girls who don't have much money. They get a bed in a double room and two meals a day. The nominal head is Miss Brady, but Miss Small works for her and appears to have a lot of authority. Ruth Miller, a young woman who works at a department store called Blackmans, has applied to live at Hope House. She has a customer, Mrs Sutton who is very fond of Ruth. She is pleased to hear that Ruth has a nice place to stay.

When Ruth presents herself at Hope House she appears to be very happy. However, very shortly she suddenly appears afraid. Sure enough, she is found dead the next day, supposedly from having jumped out of the window. However, Mrs. Sutton doesn't believe she would have done that, and hires her detective friend, Mark, to look into it. He very soon realizes that she was murdered before she was thrown out of the window. He does a lot of investigating and gives information to Foy, the local policeman. He also finally finds out about where she came from and the person who was her enemy.

The book is very suspenseful as we near the end and Hope House is full of police closing in on the perpetrator who must be one of two people.

Lillian Harris, a department store sales clerk, is excited to move into Hope House, a respectable rooming house for women of slender means, subsidized by wealthy New York patrons. However, something or someone frightens her so badly as she moves in that she is terrified to leave her room. The next evening she is found dead from a fall from an upper story. The police deem it suicide, but a customer she befriended doesn't believe it and hires Mark East, an upper-class detective, to delve deeper into the matter. He is assisted by two elderly ladies who have their own bumbling methods of looking into the incident. What they discover is that Hope House harbors secrets that some wish to keep buried. The author populates the book with many suspects and red herrings to keep the reader guessing "who did it." The book is a product of it's time where grown women are "girls." These "girls" act a bit odd, but that may well be part of the author's plan. Overall, a good classic crime where tensions mount as the book progresses.

This is actually third in the Mark East series and I hadn’t read the first two. However, I decided to break my usual rule about reading a series out of order and gave this a try, as I liked the sound of the setting.

Published in 1947, this is set in Hope House, a New York boarding home for women. Ruth Miller, who, like the other tenants of Hope House, has a fairly lowly paid job, works in a department store. She is delighted to have been accepted at Hope House, and tells her favourite customer all about it; the boarding hotel having been recommended by two of her colleagues in the stockroom. However, once Ruth moves in, her excitement turns to fear. She spies someone from her past and she fears that she has also been recognised. ..

This mystery is, obviously, dated. For me, though, this is part of the charm and I enjoyed the setting of Hope House and the scenes at Blackman’s Department Store. There is a good deal of tension, as Ruth tries to decide what to do. When there is a party, held at Hope House, all the girls wear masks and, later, Ruth is found dead – a suspected suicide. Ruth may have been a young, poorly paid worker, but someone cares that she is gone and an investigation begins to uncover what happened.

There are lots of interesting, and some quite odd, characters. Also, there is lots of period flavour and this will have great appeal to anyone who enjoys early mysteries. If you are interested in going back and reading the series from the beginning, the first book is, “Blood Upon the Snow,” published in 1944 and, “A Time to Die,” published in 1945. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

I didn't think I was going to like this as it all started so slowly and the chapters were never ending but I'm glad I stuck with it as it was excellent. The novel begins with the suspicious death of Ruth Miller who had only just moved into Hope House a few days earlier. The police investigated and presumed suicide because of what they were told about Ruth being nervous etc. A concerned friend who knew Ruth from the department store she worked in Knew that she would not take her own life as she was so excited for the future and she asked a private detective to look into the matter. The case took another twist when another girl in Hope House was attacked in a bathroom and left for dead. The private detective follows the leads and calls in the police again and eventually they apprehend the killer.

This book was first published in 1947 so a little outdated but no less enjoyable for that.
Hope House is a New York boarding house for women. Ruth Miller, a sales clerk from a nearby department store moves in after talking to 2 current tenants and colleagues at work (Moke and Poke). She tells a regular customer, Mrs Sutton, at her counter how excited she is to have found such a good place where meals are provided and there is hot water - something we all take for granted in the modern world but apparently not common place back then. On her first evening at Hope House Ruth recognises a voice from her past - a person that turned Ruth's life upside down and made her move to New York and basically go into hiding. Ruth seems to have bad sight (and her glasses are broken) so cannot see the face to go with the voice. She proceeds to go out again and come back very late that night. En route back she leaves a note for a doctor friend to ring her but the note gets blown away and he never rings although Ruth waits all weekend for the call. Her roommate is away for the night and Ruth is terrified of the baddie coming to get her so has a restless night.
In the meantime Ruth plans to run away but unfortunately for her the manageress of Hope House (Miss Brady and her sidekick Miss Small) have some (to us) outdated ideas and basically stops her at every turn. Ruth takes her suitcase to work and gets a half day but unfortunately Miss Brady is conveniently loitering outside and jumped in the cab with Ruth and for all intents and purposes kidnaps her and brings her back to Hope House. There is a party due and all the girls wear the same costume so Ruth plans on making her way to the door but again she is stopped. Later that evening Ruth falls to her death. It is ruled suicide and everyone is happy until Mrs Sutton comes back from her trip to the country and finds Ruth dead and raises suspicions. She gets a friend Mr East to investigate (grudgingly at first as he too believes it was suicide). Also 2 amateur detectives are visiting at the same time, Miss Beulah Pond and Miss Bessy Petty, and they also help the plot along. Later a 2nd girl is attacked but luckily does not die and this convinces Mark East that Ruth's death was not a suicide but he needs to act quick to unmask the killer before anyone else gets killed.
Having never read this author before I did not know what to expect but was thoroughly entertained and kept guessing until close to the end. The book may be a little dated with regards to how single women were treated in boarding houses but the book is essentially a murder mystery and a classic whodunnit. There are clues peppered around and a few red herrings thrown in. It is very easy reading and a page turner. Definitely an author I would read more of.

I really liked this book. Well written. Huge number of characters that require paying close attention as you read through. I love the who dun it kind of books. Clean and engaging. Highly recommend. I received a copy courtesy of Crime Classics and net galley.

This was my first book by this author. It moved a little slow at first and the actions of the girls were not always quite believable. In spite of that I enjoyed the book, especially as it went along. The setting is interesting and feels authentic. It definitely has a "creep" factor - something going on that you feel but don't see right away. Recommend.

Wow. If only I had paid more attention to the SMALL things at the beginning of the book, I might have figured it out before the denouement. This story was full of suspects - and any one of them COULD have done it. If you pay attention at the beginning, you should be able to figure out who pushed the doll out the window. If not, you're still in for a good story and a lot of fun. I'm going right off to find my next Hilda Lawrence book. Read this book - you won't regret it.

It took me a bit to be involved in this book, at the beginning I found it slow even if interesting.
After the first part it was engaging and entertaining.
It's like the picture of a long past era, even the style of writing seems a bit vintage and dated.
The mystery was good, full of interesting characters and twists.
A very good book, I hope I will be able to read other by this author.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Agora Books and Netgalley for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all opinions are mine

This is an old american classic as opposed to the other british ones that I have reviewed on this blog, and there is a marked difference in the style of narration. It took me the better part of the first half to get into the story but once I got the hang of the tone of narration, the professional and amateur sleuths started to get interesting. The story centers around a home for working women in New York and Ruth Miller is excited to move in. We are given introductions to a few of the women in the house who will play minor and major roles in the upcoming chaos. The first part of the tale centers only around the suspicious circumstances that Ruth Miller finds herself in after she checks in. A few days later she is no longer alive. A friend of Ruth's takes up arms to find out more and she has two unofficial and one official investigator on the case.

These last few people are what bring the entertainment into the mix. Their styles of investigations wary but the conversations get more entertaining. Once the women in 'Hope House' become familiar it is hard to not keep guessing as to who the culprit could be. The entire book is filled with sketches of people (in words) and a form of character study that gets fun to read once it becomes more familiar. I really enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to those fans of crime classics who have a bit of time on their hands to leisurely peruse this book( do not give up on it till you get to the interesting bits, it will be worth it).

I did not guess the ending which in itself is a pleasure but I wish the book had been shorter and slightly less meandering at times but it was originally released in 1947 so I cannot really expect current length from something written then!

I received a review copy of this. I've never read anything else by this author, and absolutely loved it. The detail about single women's lives in post war New York is fascinating, as it is set in a hostel for impoverished single women, and explores their options for survival in a very unforgiving city. The character studies are very well done, and explore a very unglamorous side of New York, while Hilda Lawrence's detective comes from a more affluent world, and initially treats the situation as a intellectual puzzle and then it becomes more serious.

"Death of a Doll" is a mystery originally published in 1947 and set in New York city. The story begins in the viewpoint of the victim. We get strong hints about who the murderer is, but the murderer is never identified. There were only about 6 to 8 real suspects, and the death was initially dismissed as a suicide. The two old ladies come to visit their private detective friend, and they hear about the death from a rich lady who liked the shopgirl and is upset about the death. The girl had been excited about living at Hope House, so it made no sense that she'd commit suicide.

So the private investigator started to look into the death, and the two ladies somewhat bumblingly also investigated on their own. Soon, the private investigator was given official permission to question people and the police were also called in. At this point, it's a matter of questioning people and comparing their stories. Because we saw events from the viewpoint of the victim, I strongly suspected one character. Things happened that made me waver in my belief, but I kept coming back to that character and was correct in that guess. So whodunit is guessable, but not glaringly obvious.

The characters were interesting, but too many of them were viewpoint characters. The author just slipped from one character to the other, and this frequent change of viewpoint was sometimes confusing. There was occasional use of bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery.

This is the first Hilda Lawrence book I have read but I doubt it will be the last. A slow burner of a mystery that builds and builds till it fairly zips along.A young woman who has just moved into a hostel/home for young ladies in New York dies after falling from a seventh story window,the death is called suicide and all but forgotten.
However a wealthy customer at the department store where she worked isn't satisfied and calls in P.I Mark Eden.Sceptical to say the least at first he gradually comes to the conclusion that all is not as it seems.
Eden is not the hard boiled PI of Hammett or Chandler but a more thoughtful character who is happy to work wih the police who are not all portrayed as moronic thugs as many were in tales of the time.
There follows an investigation by Eden, questioning staff and residents of the Home ,a strange and varied group ,work colleagues and a picture unfolds and he slowly pieces together the events of the fateful night and the reasons for her death.

A great read well written and well constructed tale.

Initially, based on the title and to some extent the cover, I thought this would be a crime novel in the mould of Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane with lots of tough talk and action but I really couldn’t have been much further from the truth. Certainly there are elements of crime or ‘noir’ fiction but this is a lot more nuanced and indeed interesting! The writing is fresh and modern, even seventy years later, with many subtle touches and clever turns of phrase that regularly raise a smile and importantly for this ‘genre’ of fiction, the logic in solving of the case is clear and well constructed. It is a good crime novel but more than that it is a quality piece of writing.

Without rehashing the plot or the blurb, it is the victim we first meet and get to know through a few scenes which deftly explain her background and how she got to be in the situation that lead to her death. But more than this, we learn of her thoughts and fears. The ‘victim’ isn’t simply that; she is not a caricature or stereotype of a ‘doll’ who happens to be the victim around whom the investigation can run. This is a developed character, a real person who believes that her hopes and dreams are destroyed when her past catches up with her. She is much more than just the ‘doll’ of the title and indeed there is so much more to that title!

This story proves to be a real time capsule, exposing a way of life that no longer exists – showing the lives of single women living in New York in the mid-20th century. It is fascinating for that but it is also a great crime story where we really root for the victim and for the detective, and pray that her death will not be for nothing and that the killer will be discovered and that justice will be done. What more could you want from a ‘crime’ novel? First class.

It's been a few days since I finished this story and although I had a few reservations at the time, I have continued to think about the characters and the setting. This clearly means that it had quite an impression on me!
It's the first Hilda Lawrence book that I have read so I didn't know any of the characters. It is typical of it's time in that we have lots of descriptive dialogue, although I did struggle to keep up with some of the americanisms.
The ending also seemed a little abrupt after such a long book. I think that I will be seeking out more of her work in the future though.

This was my Crime Classics Review Club book for February. It’s by an American author and set in a girls’ rooming house. The young women work in shops and offices, are poorly paid and consider themselves well off in Hope House. Everything changes when Ruth Miller arrives, thrilled to find herself in a safe and comfortable place. Yet no sooner has she checked in than she suddenly looks frightened and is constantly wary, looking over her shoulder – for whom? When she’s found dead, the people who run Hope House and the police pass off her death as suicide, a one-off event. The attempt to carry on as if nothing has happened is doomed and soon there is an atmosphere of fear and suspicion; everyone is frightened, no one wants to talk. Tension mounts and the denouement is surprising and shocking. I’d never heard of Hilda Lawrence but on the strength of this novel, Agora Books have done well to rescue her from obscurity.

Hilda Lawrence was an American crime author best known for her series of novels featuring the private investigator Mark East, published during the 1940s. This one from 1947, Death of a Doll, is the third in the series and has been reissued this month by Agora Books. Lawrence is one of several ‘forgotten’ or lesser known crime writers to be brought back into print by various publishers recently; sometimes it’s easy to see why an author’s books have been allowed to fade into obscurity, but I was very pleasantly surprised by this one and am hoping the rest of the Mark East series will be made available again too.

The story is set in and around Hope House, a home for young women in New York City run by Monica Brady and her assistant Angelina Small. The home provides seventy girls with a safe refuge where, for a small fee, they can have a bed, hot water, two meals a day and the opportunity to make new friends. At the beginning of the novel we meet Ruth Miller, a woman in her twenties who works in Blackmans department store and who is excitedly telling her regular customer, Roberta Sutton, that she has been offered a place at Hope House. We don’t know why Ruth has found herself with nowhere else to go and nobody to turn to, but she gives the reader a hint that there has been some sort of trouble in her past. Later that day, we see her arriving at her new home, suitcase in hand, full of optimism for the future.

Two days later, Ruth is dead, having fallen from a window on the seventh floor of Hope House during a party at which all of the girls were dressed in rag doll costumes. Suicide is assumed, but Roberta is not convinced. Why would Ruth have killed herself just as her life was beginning to improve? What the reader knows, but the characters don’t – although some of them suspect – is that during those few days at Hope House, Ruth came face to face with someone from the past…but who was it and how could this have led to her death?

Roberta calls in her private investigator friend, Mark East, who arrives in New York accompanied by two more amateur detectives, the elderly spinsters Miss Beulah and Miss Bessy. It’s going to be difficult to know where to start – there’s so little known about Ruth and her background, and the fact that all of the girls were dressed in identical doll costumes on the night of her death doesn’t help – but surely between the three of them they can solve the mystery?

I really enjoyed this book. Although the story is slow to unfold – a lot of time is spent on exploring the relationships between the various girls and employees at Hope House – I still found it difficult to put down. I didn’t guess the culprit correctly, but felt as though I probably should have done! I did suspect almost all of the ‘dolls’ at one point or another, constantly changing my mind as more information was revealed. The setting is wonderful too; I could vividly picture the interior of Hope House, with Kitty answering the phones on the switchboard, Jewel operating the elevator, and Miss Brady and Miss Small seeing that everything ran smoothly, while making ambitious plans for the future.

My only problem with the book was that I felt there were too many characters and that we saw things from too many different viewpoints. I’m not sure whether we really needed three detectives either. I think Beulah and Bessy were probably included to lighten the mood and provide some comedy, but they didn’t add much to the story in my opinion and I would have preferred to have spent more time following Mark’s investigations instead. Otherwise, this was a great first introduction to Hilda Lawrence’s work and an unusual combination of the cosy and the dark and suspenseful.

Hope House is a hotel for women only ... mainly for working women who do not want to live alone. Payment is only $8.00 a month and that's much lower than what a small apartment would cost.

Wearing a doll's costume that all the ladies of the hotel were wearing one night, Ruth Miller falls from the 7th floor balcony. Or was she pushed?

She had been acting strangely and there are many red flags pointing to a mysterious past. The reader learns early on that she's been running ... from something or someone. Has someone recognized her? Or maybe it was paranoia?

The police mark this down as a suicide, but two elderly ladies who knew the victim hire PI Mark East to investigate. It's an easy decision for East to make as there is suddenly a second violent death. The residents are obviously scared and wondering who's next.

While a well-written mystery, humor abounds in the characters of Beulah and Bessie. They are funny and charming and well defined. The story premise is a good one. Mark East comes across as credible.

Death of a Doll, which was published in 1947, is considered this author's masterpiece. She died in Manhattan, New York, in 1976.

Many thanks to Agora Books and Netgalley for the digital copy of this 1940's mystery. Opinions expressed here are unbiased and entirely my own.

EXCERPT: She went back to the night before, to the afternoon that was just over. She retraced every step. I don't think she knew me at first, she decided. Because of my glasses. I was wearing glasses before. But she knew me this afternoon. Maybe I have a special way of turning my head or using my hands. . . She looked at her hands and saw they were clenched. Maybe I did that this afternoon. Maybe I did that the other time.

She went back to the other time. She saw an office, richly furnished, saw two hatted men with hard eyes, saw another man, hatless, sitting in a leather chair behind an ornate desk. She saw the other girl, her face twisted with fury. She heard the voice again, low and quiet at first, then screaming: 'I'll kill you for this. Someday we'll meet and I'll kill you with my bare hands.'

ABOUT THIS BOOK: Hope House, a New York boarding home for women, has led a rather sleepy existence in terms of emergencies. One wastepaper basket fire surely doesn’t count as a five-alarm fire. That is until new tenant Ruth Miller’s limp and lifeless body is found in the courtyard after plummeting to her death.

In a clandestine and hot-chocolate infused meeting, the heads of the house decide Ruth’s death couldn’t possibly have been foul play: no, she must have fallen or jumped. Shy and mousy, it seems Ruth had no friends to question… or ask uncomfortable questions.

But this was no accident: upon Ruth’s arrival, the atmosphere of this happy house shifted, her paranoia was catching, and her last days were filled with dread. If the heads thought a scandal could be averted, they were wrong. It turns out Ruth did have a friend… and she’s out for justice.

This claustrophobic and tense mystery is heralded as Hilda Lawrence’s best. Equal parts cosy and suspenseful, it’s sure to captivate lovers of all genres of classic crime.

Death of a Doll was first published in 1947 and is the third in the Mark East Series:

Mark East
1. Blood Upon the Snow (1944)
2. A Time to Die (1945)
3. Death of A Doll (1947)

MY THOUGHTS: This book is a bit of a mixed bag of tricks. It brought to mind old movies where the private eye wears a fedora and always has a lit cigarette in his mouth, the women are all dames or dolls, and people have a 'swell' time. In that sense, although Mark East was rather more refined than that, it was very enjoyable. I could see and hear most of this playing out just like one of those old movies, and the dialogue is superb, if occasionally a little hard to follow, but only because our speech has changed greatly in the last seventy years. As has the writing style.

There are some delightfully odd characters to enjoy, Bessy and Beulah, for example. Mark East says of them, 'With his own eyes he had seen them find needles in haystacks and thread them with camels'.
Two ladies of indeterminate age, independently wealthy (I should imagine that ten thousand a year was a great deal back then), and who don't mind a tipple or two, they provide a great deal of color.

The plot is dated, but perhaps all the more appealing because of that. It would not work in a modern setting where young working women no longer live in heavily chaperoned boarding houses, required to sign in and out if going anywhere other than work. It brought to mind living in the nurses home when I started my training. We were all required to 'live in' for our first year. But back to the plot - I got a little lost once or twice and had to retrace my steps to see if I had missed something. But no, it is just the writing style, deliberately obscure at times.

All in all, an enjoyable read, and definitely recommended if you enjoy atmospheric period 'whodunnits'. But I would also recommend that you read this series from the beginning to get a better knowledge of the main characters.

😊😊😊.5

THE AUTHOR: Hilda Lawrence was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1894. An avid reader of crime fiction, she wrote her first novel, Blood upon the Snow, in 1946. The novel introduced her three main series characters: Manhattan private investigator Mark East and sleuthing New England spinsters Miss Beulah and Miss Bessy. By combining these characters Hilda Lawrence's novels are a clever mixture of the hardboiled and softboiled styles of detective fiction. Hilda Lawrence wrote only four novels, all in the 1940s. Death of a Doll, which was published in 1947, is considered her masterpiece. She died in Manhattan, New York, in 1976.

DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Agora Books via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of Death of a Doll by Hilda Lawrence for review. All opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own personal opinions.

Please refer to my Goodreads.com profile page or the about page on sandysbookaday.wordpress.com for an explanation of my rating system. This review and others are also published on my webpage https://sandysbookaday.wordpress.com/...

Agora Books do have a knack of finding books published a long time ago, but which deserve a new audience. Death of a Doll is a good example. First published in 1947, it’s the story of Ruth Miller, a woman who gets a room in a women-only hostel in New York that sounds wonderful. There’s plenty of hot water and meals made by the staff. She works in a department store and is so happy to move to the hostel. She has few friends, one of whom is Mrs Sutton, a wealthy customers who always chats to Ruth when she visits the store.

However, her happiness is short-lived. Within five minutes of entering the hostel, she’s petrified. The assumption is that she’s seen someone who has terrified her – but who is it? Later, there’s a murder. Mrs Sutton asks Mark East to investigate. Her two friends, Miss Beulah and Miss Bessy, who are visiting Mrs Sutton, also decide to investigate. And then there’s a second murder…

Hilda Lawrence (1906 – 1970) used Mark East (and Miss Bessy and Miss Beulah) as series characters. The two ladies bring a lot of humour to the book, with a double-act that is still laugh-out-loud funny today. The dialogue conforms to the stereotype I imagined 1930s hard-boiled American detective stories would be. The author does an excellent job of capturing the atmosphere of 1930s/’40s New York with unwitting history – things she took for granted at the time but which seem historical to us today, e.g. a lift with an operator. I probably wouldn’t have read the book if I’d realised it was American, because I don’t have enough time to read all the British mysteries I’ve collected, but I’m very glad I did. I’ll look out for more Hilda Lawrence – are you listening, Agora? Please?

#DeathOfAdoll #NetGalley

A great story from Hilda. The first one I have read from Hilda Worth a read. Recommended. C wait to read the next one from Crime Classics

Ohhh yes this was a good one! At first I was not sure if I would be able to really get into it like I normally do with the novels I read but I am so glad I didn't give up on it! Such a good suspense and thriller read... I highly recommend it!