The Case of the Murdered Muckraker

January 28, 2002
In her 10th cozy featuring English writer Daisy Dalrymple (To Davy Jones Below, etc.), Dunn captures the melting pot of Prohibition-era New York with humorous characterizations and a vivid sense of place, and with careful plotting lays out an enjoyable tale of adventure. While her husband, Alec Fletcher, DCI at Scotland Yard, is consulting with J. Edgar Hoover in Washington, Daisy is on her own in New York. At the Chelsea Hotel, Daisy meets a number of eccentrics, including a formidable retired crime writer, a hustling elevator boy with the connections to get good whiskey and the reporter Otis Carmody. Carmody's path crosses Daisy's once again at the offices of her American editor in the Flatiron building—where Daisy witnesses the reporter's murder. He'd riled the mob and many Tammany politicos, any of whom might have reason to kill Carmody as well as any witnesses. With little confidence in the politically aware DA and his bumbling detective, Daisy and her new friends recreate a scenario that points to perpetrator and motive. Daisy knows this is just speculation, but by the time Alec arrives, she is chasing a thread across the country on a hitched ride on a plane. As an amateur sleuth, Daisy never overreaches the limits of what she can plausibly uncover; the cross-country trek is earned by a sure and gradual build-up of suspicion. Throughout her travels in the States, Daisy is keenly attuned to people and place: race relations, regional accents, even foods all add to the texture of the story.