The Philadelphia Murder Story

 The Philadelphia Murder Story (1945) by Leslie Ford (Zenith Jones Brown)

Myron Kane is a well-known, thoroughly impossible columnist and contributor to The Saturday Evening Post. He makes life difficult for everyone--from editors to staff members to the subjects of his feature stories. This time he has decided to do a feature on Judge Whitney and he uses his slight acquaintance with Grace Latham to wangle an interview with Abigail Whitney, the Judge's aged, eccentric sister. Though the siblings have live next door to each other, they have not spoken for eight years and Whitney is hoping to dig up dirt to spice up his feature story. He does come up with some juicy tidbits (in written documents)--but not through the Judge's Dear Sister (Abigail simply adores capital letters and sprinkles them liberally throughout her speech). 

Abigail Whitney imperiously demands that Grace come to help get the documents back from Kane and Grace finds herself dragged deeper and deeper into the Whitney troubles. Colonel Primrose and Sergeant Buck happen to be on the spot...and it's just as well because the manuscript disappears and then Kane is found stabbed to death, floating in the goldfish pond in the lobby of the Curtis Building, home of the Post. There are plenty of suspicious comings and goings on the fatal day--mysterious movements of the Post staff, surprise visits from various members of the Whitney household, and even a sighting of Benjamin Franklin (whose statues appear in various places in the building). When a blood-stained Franklin costume is discovered in a Post filing cabinet, it begins to look like the famous Revolutionary figure is the culprit. But Primrose has a few ideas about that....and, if Grace would just reveal all she knows and yet not interfere too much, he might prove it before the killer strikes again.

So...can I just say that Grace Latham is pretty infuriating in this outing. She has no reason on earth to have any loyalty to Abigail Whitney and yet she feels that she must keep faith with the Whitneys even if it prevents Primrose and the local police from finding the killer in time to prevent another murder. I understand her taking a liking to Monk (stupid name), Judge Whitney's son, but keeping back information from the authorities is never a good idea. And this is her twelfth adventure with Colonel Primrose--you'd think she would have learned to trust the man by now. My other difficulty with this one is that the culprit sticks out from the beginning. I know who Ford wanted us to suspect as a red herring, but there wasn't any real reason to do so. The one saving grace of the plot is that the motive is not nearly as obvious. I knew who, I just didn't know exactly why. Other good points are Primrose and Buck--I wish that we had seen more of them. Grace is much more engaging when she's with them than when she's operating alone. I would have paid good money for a scene where she put Abigail Whitney in her place and told her to stop calling her "Dear Child." ★★ and 1/2.

First line: The editors of The Saturday Evening Post have finally overcome what I think I may call their natural reluctance about telling the full story of the body found in the goldfish pond in the entrance lobby of The Curtis Publishing Company Building on Independence Square, in Philadelphia, last winter.

It does seem obvious that a widow on what someone kindly called the glamorous side of forty, living in Georgetown, District of Columbia, should not, in the ordinary nature of things, be constantly stumbling over corpses. (p. 5)

Last lines: Colonel Primrose looked at me and smiled. "Well?" he said.
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Deaths =  5 (one plane crash; one stabbed; one natural; one suicide; one hit on head)