JEAN LESLIE – A Hair of the Dog. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1947. No paperback edition.

   As an author, Jean Leslie is all but unknown today, but in mid-40s and early 50s she wrote a total of eight works of mystery and detective fiction, all published under Doubleday’s long-established Crime Club imprint. The first three take place in Academia and feature a series character named Peter Ponsonby, a professor of some note who dabbles on the side in writing pulp mysteries. About the author herself, Hubin supplies the following information: “Jean Leslie Cornett (1908-1994). Born in Omaha, raised in Santa Monica; teaching fellow in psychology.”

   Anyone interested in a little Internet research can take it from here. This may be a small foothold to work from.

   The book itself, Leslie’s fourth, begins in an unusual way. The story is told by Jennifer Caldwell, a young woman who has been the secretary to a wealthy but retired manufacturer of dog food for several years now. She stops in at a lawyer’s office, one chosen at random, to explain her concerns. Her employer has just decided to cut several family members out of his will, but to add a bequest of $100,000 to Jennifer.

   After telling Mr. Barclay all the details of her employer’s family, plus two research scientists who live on the property, along with two servants, she then tells him she doesn’t want the money and what can he do to help her about it? He replies that he’s a corporation lawyer and he doesn’t handle cases like this. She retorts, then why did you spend the last hour listening and leering at me? He replies, who wouldn’t?

   This is, of course, yet another dysfunctional families such as vintage detective mysteries are often populated with, but Jennifer’s employee, whose largess everyone else depends on, is a fine old gentleman who know exactly who the members of his family are. Unfortunately someone decides to stop him permanently before he actually signs the new will he has threatened everyone with.

   As a detective story, this one is purely middle of the road, and in fact I enjoyed it less than I did the characters themselves, all of whom had some depth to them, including the narrator, who quickly reveals that she has some secrets she’s not sharing. As for Mr. Barclay, it seems as though the attraction was mutual, and no, Chapter One is not the last we see of him.