photo: AbeBooks
About the author: Richard Orson Lockridge (1898 –1982) was an American writer of detective fiction. He began the Captain Heimrich series with his wife Frances (1896-1963), and continued the series following her death.
This book concerns the murder of Annette LeBaron Weaver, former actress. She was on her third marriage at the time of her death. She lived next door to matriarch Emily Drake, mother of her first husband Stephen Drake. Emily also has another son, Oliver Drake, an architect.
Annette's husbands, in order:
- Stephen Drake (now married to Florence Drake)
- James Brennan (now married to Leslie Brennan)
- Ralph Weaver, current husband, theatrical agent
Everyone else:
- Leslie Brennan, real estate agent, married to James Brennan
- Father Jonathan Cunningham, Leslie's father, a bishop
- J. K. Knight, potential house buyer
- Harriet Larkin, cleaning woman
- Captain Merton Heimrich
- Sgt. Charlie Forniss
Locale: Westchester County, NY
Synopsis: Real estate agent Leslie Brennan is on her way to show a house to potential buyer J.K. Knight. The house is for sale by current owner, glamorous ex-actress Annette Weaver. (Leslie is married to James Brennan, Annette's ex #2). Annette had recently hosted a Fourth-of-July party - confident her house had been sold and she was moving away for good, and used the opportunity to tell off her low-life Van Brunt guests over the musician's P.A. system. This was a move she came to regret when the real estate deal fell through and she had to stay on. Leslie, finding no one (apparently) home, uses the key from the real estate lock box, opens the door, and finds Annette's body, shot to death.
Harriet Larkin, cleaning woman, arrives the next morning and is the second to find the body. She notifies authorities. Captain Merton Heimrich and Sgt. Charlie Forniss set about untangling the family relationships. The prospective house buyer, J. K. Knight, had been a no-show; but he calls Leslie on the phone. Leslie suspects it is a different person entirely, and consults with her father, bishop Jonathan Cunningham who is somewhat of an expert on voices. Then, on her way home, she disappears.
Review: I had a bit of trouble getting oriented in the first chapter (in which Leslie finds the body). It is told in first person, but the narrator's identity is not revealed. The narrator seems to be someone going to the house with Leslie, but in a separate vehicle.
Beginning in the second chapter, the rest of the story is told in the normal third person. Suddenly cleaning lady, Harriet Larkin, becomes the second person to find the body - huh? A bit startling, that. What happened to Leslie? Did she flee the scene and not bother to tell anybody? It eventually comes out that she was scared off by hearing a loud Porsche leaving the scene - and her husband, James, has one - and maybe he had done away with his ex.
The parade of Annette's ex-husbands and subsequent remarriages could be confusing to the casual reader, but I had made notes along the way to keep them straight (list above). The ex's all remained surprisingly cozy with Annette, as she enjoyed going out to lunches (and other after-dessert activities) with them. She is termed a 'nympho' by one of them.
Leslie's disapperance and pursuit in the woods was a tense, dramatic episode which kept me turning pages past my bedtime. Lockridge succeeded in fooling me - I had two prime candidates for murderer picked out, but neither of them turned out to be the one.
The question of who-is-the-Chapter-One-narrator finally got resolved in the end. Please also note one occurrence of the n-word.
Please also see this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block.
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