photo: AbeBooks
Series: This is Captain Heimrich #9.
About the authors: Richard Orson Lockridge (1898 –1982) was an American writer of detective fiction. Richard Lockridge with his wife Frances (1896-1963) created one of the most famous American mystery series, Mr. and Mrs. North. (wikipedia).
Major characters:
- Susan Faye, widow, fabric designer
- Michael Faye, her son
- Orville Phipps, banker, town supervisor
- Asa Pervis, tow truck operator
- Cornelia Van Brunt, matriarch widow
- Henry Van Brunt III, her son
- Sam Jackson, lawyer
- Capt. Merton Heimrich, NY State Police
- Marian Alden, his niece
- John Alden, her husband
- Sgt. Charlie Forniss
Locale: [fictional] Van Brunt, Putnam County, New York
Synopsis: Marian Alden, niece of NY State Police Captain Merton Heimrich, and her husband John Alden are anxious to fit in to their town of Van Brunt; and attend the local town meeting. All the NIMBYs are there to oppose a zoning change to allow smaller lot sizes the resulting influx of low-brows; and there is tension among the residents. Town Supervisor (and banker and land developer) Orville Phipps is chairing the meeting.
The meeting is interrupted by a fire at the fire station. The building and two engines are destroyed. Early in the morning, Asa Purvis, on towing duty at the garage across the street, finds Phipps' Jeep parked in his station. Thinking Phipps is looking at the fire station mess, he takes a look himself, and finds Phipps' burned body in the rubble. Did he die in the fire?
Captain Heimrich thinks the death suspicious. Widow Susan Faye reports she had been given a ride by Phipps long after the fire was out, and autopsy shows Phipps was dead before his body was placed in the rubble. Heimrich is attracted* to Susan, but discovers a possible motive she will inherit from Phipps, who was her cousin. Then her son Michael Faye is abducted briefly - and returned with a warning to forget whatever Phipps had told her. Someone then takes a shot at Asa Purvis.
*Heimrich and Susan will marry in a later title.
Review: Well, I got spolier-ed on this one. I knew right off who the killer was, as a later book (I forget which) mentioned this specific case and I.D'd the killer. Serves me right for not reading them in order. But that did not diminish my enjoyment of this one.
I have served on my town's zoning board, so I felt right at home in the opening chapter as we get a play-by-play of the town meeting, complete with annoying NIMBY's. Fortunately the meeting only lasted the first chapter.
I found it interesting how the well-to-do town had a specific section (The Flats) which has the down-and-outs. In the Hudson Valley, no less! And the town made nice pretty street signs, but none for The Flats. It made for some uncomfortable reading as the well-to-do's look down their noses and try to keep them from infiltrating the rest of the town; and kept calling to mind similar incidents of which I am aware. It was the catalyst for murder, but does it ever really rise to that point?
I enjoyed reading about Susan Faye before she and Heimrich got married. I had not realized what a tough position she had been in financially.
While you're here, you may also enjoy:
- this review by Bev Hankins on My Reader's Block
- this review by Kate on Cross Examining Crime
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