Linda L. Richards' witty, well-plotted novels about secretary Kitty Pangborn couldn't be more timely.
Set during the Great Depression, Richards shows the struggles and the penny-pinching that permeated daily lives. Richards also taps into the fascination with Hollywood gossip and scandal.
In "Death Was in the Picture," Kitty is pulled into an investigation by her boss, private detective Dexter Theroux. Dexter has been hired to help clear actor Laird Wyndham. The handsome actor had been seen with a young actress who mysteriously died. But Dexter also has another client - one who wants Laird to be proven guilty of the woman's death.
In the second novel in this series, Richards skillfully mixes the tenets of a traditional mystery with a hard-boiled novel for a snappy tale drenched in the atmosphere of 1930s Los Angeles. Richards also amusingly offers a riff on the private detective novel by having the secretary be the main sleuth. Anyone who's read Dashiell Hammett or Mickey Spillane knows not only how invaluable the secretaries were to the plot but also who really ran those P.I. offices.
"Death Was in the Picture" is a lively look at an era that is quite similar to 2009.
