Lori C. (dollycas) reviewed on 12/8/2011 + 648 more book reviews

Second rate illustrator, Ernie MacGuffin, slips dear Dorothy a note that she later finds out is a suicide note. Seems he threw himself off the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight and Dorothy found the note too late to save him. Soon after his works of art have tripled in value and no one really seems sad that the man is even dead.

Dorothy believes there is more to the story and enlists the help of Harry Houdini, magician and skeptic. They attend a séance where the dead artist is expected to be contacted from the great beyond. The haunting voice sounds just a little to real to Dorothy which leads her to believe something illegal is definitely afoot. With the help of her friends she is going to solve this mystery and maybe another one too.

Dollycas's Thoughts
I love everything about this story, the setting, the characters, the mysteries. Traveling back in time with real people, to real places, with fictional drama is so much fun. Dorothy Parker was quite a woman. She led quite a life. She was a book reviewer herself.

Miss Parker laced her wit with heady truth as a book reviewer, first for The New Yorker as Constant Reader and then for Esquire as book review editor for many years. "Her notices were written with a chatty trenchancy, as though she were talking informally to the reader; but she could (and did) impale authors who displeased her, either by synopsizing a pompous plot in all its ludicrousness or by pulverizing the book with a phrase."*

I don't think J.J. Murphy would "displease" her at all, but she would probably wonder why anyone would write stories featuring the people at "The Round Table".

"These were no giants. Think of who was writing in those days - Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. Those were the real giants. The Round Table was just a lot of people telling jokes and telling each other how good they were."*

I am sure my reviews wouldn't pass muster with her though because with her great wit she was a master.

I am glad J.J. Murphy has chosen to write these captivating mysteries with these feisty characters. There is definitely plenty of material in their histories to make me hope there will be many, many more installments to this series. Be sure to vote for the next special guest that will appear in Book 4 of the series. Arthur Conan Doyle will be the special guest in the third book in the series, A FRIENDLY GAME OF MURDER (2012). I am a big Sherlock Holmes fan so that one is definitely on my "Can't Wait To Read" list. If you have an e-reader there is also a short story available now featuring Dorothy, Hair of the Dog. I just ordered it myself.

I highly recommend You Might As Well Die!

* excerpts from the New York Obituary of Dorothy Parker (1967)

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