Thu 23 Apr 2020
ELIZABETH DEAN – Murder a Mile High. Emma Marsh & Hank Fairbanks #3. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1944. Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2001.
Colorado, that is, in the tourist town of Golden City. This is the third (and last) mystery to feature the sleuthing team of Miss Emma Marsh (of Boston) and Mr. Henry Fairbanks, of Naval Intelligence, but when an opera singer dies, it is only Emma who thinks it was murder.
It took me a while to finish this one, once started, but I think this book is a gem. The story proceeds in fits and starts, backtracking as it does every once in a while to explain some puzzling bit of stuff that took place before, and since everything means something, you really do have to pay attention.
The Emma Marsh & Hank Fairbanks series —
Murder Is a Collector’s Item. Doubleday 1939.
Murder Is a Serious Business. Doubleday 1940.
Murder a Mile High. Doubleday 1944.
All three have been reprinted by Rue Morgue Press. This may be prove useful to know if you find yourself wanting to read any of the series. I have discovered only one or two copies of the first two in hardcover offered for sale online, and none of this third one. (Hence no photo.)
April 24th, 2020 at 10:29 am
A Nazi flag? In Colorado? Some explanation is needed.
April 24th, 2020 at 11:23 am
Jerry
I saw that too, and I have no idea. The book was published in 1944, so a Nazi flag seen in a window in Colorado would have been very conspicuous. A possible clue is that the male half of the detective do in all three of Dean’s books was in Naval Intelligence, and the murder may have been connected to that.