Barbara R. (Crop4Fun) reviewed No Lady in the House (C. B. Greenfield, Bk 3) on + 1217 more book reviews
HERE we are back in Sloan's Ford, the New York suburb, with the publisher of the village newspaper, C.B. Greenfield, music lover, feisty boss and amateur sleuth with professional intuitions.
This time, the murder takes place in his own house, when his new cleaning woman, whom he has not really met, is slain.
The unraveling of it by him and his chief reporter and Dr. Watson, Maggie Rome, focuses on several suburban women. The crime is not so much the thing as the telling of it, with its delightful vignettes of suburban life, from supermarket to that special new class, the middle-class working woman. Miss Kallen has a keen eye and ear, and her delineation of character and characters is unerring. She knows the mailman, the deliveryman, the cleaning woman, the householder and the children, and she presents them with a healthy humor.
Feminism is adumbrated here, but, like everything else, it is not exalted. When one of the women complains that the service station will not accept female customers on the weekends because the time is reserved for men who are working the rest of the week, you know there is a case to be made. Others might immediately distribute petitions and call meetings, but this author lets the anecdote make the point.
This is another in the series of mysteries Miss Kallen has been treating readers to from time to time. One has a suspicion that generations from now researchers may be enlightened with a peek into these pages when they want to know how suburban life was way back now.
This time, the murder takes place in his own house, when his new cleaning woman, whom he has not really met, is slain.
The unraveling of it by him and his chief reporter and Dr. Watson, Maggie Rome, focuses on several suburban women. The crime is not so much the thing as the telling of it, with its delightful vignettes of suburban life, from supermarket to that special new class, the middle-class working woman. Miss Kallen has a keen eye and ear, and her delineation of character and characters is unerring. She knows the mailman, the deliveryman, the cleaning woman, the householder and the children, and she presents them with a healthy humor.
Feminism is adumbrated here, but, like everything else, it is not exalted. When one of the women complains that the service station will not accept female customers on the weekends because the time is reserved for men who are working the rest of the week, you know there is a case to be made. Others might immediately distribute petitions and call meetings, but this author lets the anecdote make the point.
This is another in the series of mysteries Miss Kallen has been treating readers to from time to time. One has a suspicion that generations from now researchers may be enlightened with a peek into these pages when they want to know how suburban life was way back now.
