The Birthday Murder

 The Birthday Murder (1945) by Lange Lewis (Jane Lewis Brandt)

Victoria Jason is a brilliant novelist and screen-writer who seems to have a gift for understanding people--too well sometimes. However, her professional success hadn't been followed by success in her personal life--her first marriage failed when she saw her husband for what he was. But now she seems to have found her perfect match--Albert Hime, a B-movie producer who seems to adore her. And the two of them are making a perfect team. Victoria's suggestions about his most recent movie helped to propel it to popularity and now it looks like Albert will get a chance to make his first A-list film. The film in question just happens to be an adaptation of Victoria's novel Ina Hart.

But just before he can realize his dream, he's poisoned...on Victoria's birthday. When Lieutenant Tuck of the LAPD is sent to investigate, he finds that there are a limited number of suspects with access to the sugar bowl that contains poison: Moira Hastings, the young actress who was hoping the lead in Ina Hart would help her break out of ingenue roles into more serious dramatic parts--but Albert always listened to Victoria and Victoria didn't think Moira was right for the part; Bernice Saxe, Victoria's friend since childhood--who just might have been jealous of the couple's happiness; Captain Sawn Harris, Victoria's ex-husband who has turned up just in time to help throw suspicion on Victoria (by design?); Hazel, Victoria's near-sighted servant, who may have killed by mistake rather than out of malice; and, of course, Victoria herself. But if the death wasn't due to accident then try as he might, Tuck can't figure a real motive for any of them. And even if Victoria really did want to get rid of her husband of a mere six months, would she really use the method that was highlighted in the very novel Albert was going to turn into film?

When I read two other mysteries by Lewis (Meat for Murder & Juliet Dies Twice) I either missed or wasn't as struck by the description of Lt. Tuck. This time around it makes me think of Lieutenant Columbo:

They [other detectives on the force] could never understand why when violent death left its usual haunts on the wrong side of the tracks and entered a home in Beverly Hills, a Los Angeles University or other such genteel places, it was Tuck whom Gufferty placed in charge, rather than one of themselves. It certainly wasn't that he was a smooth man; he was a slow man, and his inevitable brown suit was apt to want pressing.

An untidy detective who isn't smooth....definitely sounds familiar. His sidekick, Detective Froody, is just as unusual:

Froody was a little fat man with sad green eyes, a waddling walk....Froody loved all niggling detail; he was the perfect leg man. He never swore; he knew his sherlock Holmes by heart, and his Tarzan almost as well. He clipped poetry from the editorial page of the city's most conservative newspaper and kept it for weeks in his wallet. His private life was as colorless as Tuck's own.

An interesting pair, this LA Homes and his Watson. One tiny disappointment--after making such a point of Froody's love of detail and abilities as a leg man, Lewis didn't really make much of those qualities. But--overall, this mystery is well done. The puzzle plot is a good one and the clues to the solution are very subtle, so subtle that I didn't catch them. Lewis does a good job of spreading the suspicion around even without concrete motives to hang that suspicion on. I kept changing my mind about who really snuck into the kitchen and grabbed the ant poison but never did come up with the right answer.  Very enjoyable--and very appropriate. I started this book on my birthday. Fortunately, no fatalities at my house. ★★★★

First line: When Victoria Jason married Albert Hime, her fifty most intimate acquaintances gasped.

You asked my advice. You don't have to take it. You probably won't. Most people ask advice hoping to be told to do what they want to do. (Victoria Jason; p. 29)

He recognized this stage of the case as the hardest of all; the stumbling-in-the-dark period which would be terminated by some sudden new fact or some twist of the old ones, but took patience to get through. (p. 97)

Last line: "There's time ahead," said Sawn.

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Deaths = two poisoned