Home sweet homicide

A cover that claims an author to be the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction has a lot to live up to. Even so, this reissue of a 1944 screwball mystery doesn't disappoint. The three Carstairs children (as they are frequently called) use their neighbor's murder as an opportunity to set their mystery-writer mother up with the single cop investigating the case. The siblings 10, 12, and 14 years old are precocious yet responsible. They make their own meals when their mother is on deadline but aren't above feigning helplessness if it gets a suspect to underestimate them. In his introduction to the American Mystery Classics series, editor Otto Penzler points out that, in 1946, Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig (aka Craig Rice) was the first author of detective fiction ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine. Expect the wide appeal of historical heroines, like Alan Bradley's irrepressible Flavia de Luce, to lead fans of high-spirited midcentury sleuths to this trio of similarly youthful detectives starring in a genuine midcentury classic.--Karen Keefe Copyright 2018 Booklist

Originally published in 1944, this sterling entry in the American Mystery Classics series from Rice (a pseudonym of Georgiana Craig) follows the adventures of widowed mystery writer Marian Carstairs and her three clever and capable children: 10-year-old Archie, 12-year-old April, and 14-year-old Dinah. On a warm, lazy afternoon, the kids are on the porch of their suburban home discussing their mother's prospects. "I wish Mother would solve a real life murder," says April. "She'd get a lot of publicity, and then she wouldn't have to write so many books." At that moment, shots ring out from the house next door. Their neighbor, Mrs. Sanford, has been murdered. When Marian refuses to investigate, Archie, April, and Dinah do so instead. They drive the plot along with great gusto, maintaining the pace with snappy patter. Nothing slows things down, not even the romance the children try to initiate between their mother and lonely police lieutenant Bill Smith. Well-drawn, eccentric characters bolster this frolicsome and frequently funny book. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.