Dorchester's Hard Case Crime line continues to shine: this
new imprint features old school mysteries with fantastic
old-style pulp crime fiction covers. Bestselling novelist Lawrence Block
has written everything from lighthearted mysteries to hard-edged
contemporary novels. The Girl With the Long Green Heart
was written in 1965 and it is a perfect example of a noir/crime story
about a long con. John Hayden and John Rance are a couple of
grifters who set up a scheme to relieve obnoxious millionaire
Wallace J. Gunderman of some of his millions, with the help of
his gorgeous secretary Evvie Stone (the auburn-haired
temptress on the alluring new pulp cover by Robert McGinnis).
Mystery author Maggie Kelly has an unusual problem: two of her
fictional characters have come to life and appear to have taken up
permanent residence in her life (See,
Maggie Needs an Alibi).
The Viscount Saint Just solves murders in Maggie's bestselling historical mystery series, assisted by his butler and sidekick, Sterling Balder.
Now Saint Just lives in Manhattan and is making quite a nice living as a male
model going by the name Alex Blakely.
Maggie, Saint Just and Sterling head to England where one of
Maggie's Saint Just mysteries is being made into a feature film.
The film is being shot on location at a country estate that is currently
being flooded by a seemingly endless thunderstorm. Power outages,
egotistical actors and an obnoxious producer are the least of Maggie's
problems: dead bodies are starting to appear. It's up to
Saint Just and Maggie to find a murderer and rescue the film.
Return to the December 2005 issue of The IWJ.