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About the author: Carolyn Wells (1862-1942) was married to Hadwin Houghton, the heir of the Houghton-Mifflin publishing empire. Like Mary Roberts Rinehart, being in a publishing family created an easy pipeline for getting her works into print. She wrote a total of more than 170 books. See this Wikipedia article.
Major characters:
- Ralph Mackenzie, wealthy widower, owner of Warlock House
- Guy Mackenzie, his son
- Fairy Lovell, a.k.a. Goldie Glenn, Guy's soon-to-be fiancée
- Sylvia Field, adopted daughter of Ralph's late wife
- Bob Arnold, a private detective
- Christopher "Kit" Cox, a private detective
- Jack Mullins, mystery writer
- Dorothy Reed, wife of one of Guy's college chums
- Ezra & Abbie Gerson, estate workers
- Blackie Blake, a dancer, a.k.a. Terrell, a reporter
Locale: Long Island, New York
Synopsis: Wealthy widower Ralph Mackenzie owns a mansion on New York's Long Island. He lives there with his son, Guy Mackenzie, and his 'niece', Sylvia Field. Sylvia is not actually related - she is the adopted daughter of his late wife. Guy and Sylvia have always been close, and Sylvia had hoped for an eventual marriage.
Guy takes a girlfriend, pouty, self-centered looker Fairy Lovell. He plans to bring her back to Warlock House to introduce her to the family and announce their engagement. Ralph suggests they go all-out, and organizes a large party for the occasion. Guy invites all his old college buddies from their college literary club and their wives. Among them are Bob Arnold, now a private detective; and Jack Mullins, a mystery novelist.
Fairy arrives at the party to great acclaim of her beauty. However, her selfish ways manage to annoy everyone, especially Ralph. To top it off, she surprises the crowd by performing a wild, suggestive dance while wearing only revealing lingerie. Ralph is shocked and changes his mind and forbids Guy from marrying her.
The party goers retire for the night, and in the morning Fairy is found dead in her bed. The police arrive, and an investigation shows she is not the person Guy thought, but rather a (gasp!) cabaret dancer. They track down her mother, and she is not the person they thought either.
Review: Having read of bunch of Wells' Fleming Stone series, this non-series novel was a nice change as Stone - like Philo Vance - gets tiring after a while. This is a tight mystery, once you get past the men-worshipping-Fairy-dancing episodes.
Similar to the Stone series, one investigator (Bob Arnold) starts off collecting facts but eventually gets bogged down, and a second investigator (Christopher 'Kit' Cox) comes in to solve the murder. Cox is a much more enjoyable character than the pedantic Stone. Both investigators are Guy's former classmates, and the police have only minor periodic appearances.
The murder method and the murderer were both surprises, and quite believable. There is a sub-plot involving some stolen pearls, and this is threaded throughout the story, and also comes to a unique, interesting solution. Cox is focused and gets to the solution in a straight forward manner.
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