LIZA CODY – Dupe. PI Anna Lee #1. Collins, UK, hardcover, 1980. Scribner’s, US, hardcover, 1981. Warner, US, paperback, 1983; Bantam, US, paperback, 1992. TV adaptation: Season 1, Episode 1 of Anna Lee, 27 February 1994, with Imogen Stubbs as Anna Lee.

   To say that the biggest fault with Liza Cody’s first novel is that we don’t get to know private eye Anna Lee well enough is testimony to the attractiveness and likableness of her heroine. Anna is a former policewoman in her late twenties, employed by the London private inquiry firm Brierly Security. In a welcome relief from her usual assignments – hunting for missing minors or “scent-counter security” – Anna is assigned to dig into the past of an apparent fatal accident victim, Dierdre Jackson.

   Dierdre had been estranged from her parents for three years, and her mother wants to know if she was happy in those last years, while her father wants information because he suspects Dierdre’s car crash was no accident. Representing herself as a friend of the family, Anna traces Dierdre’s friends and employers, most or them on the fringes or the film world; and soon she, too, begins to suspect there is more to the young woman’s death than a crash on an icy road.

   Anna’s low-key approach to investigation is refreshing, and she proves herself tough enough when the case requires it. The glimpses we are allowed into Anna’s private life – especially those scenes involving her zany and endearing neighbors, Bea and Selwyn Price – are tantalizing. So much so, in fact, that any reader will want to know more about her background, such as what her family was like and why she joined and then left the police force.

   An engaging novel with a strong plot, Dupe won the John Creasey Award for Britain’s Best First Mystery Novel. Cody’s second and third novels, also featuring Anna Lee, are Bad Company (1982) and Stalker (1984).

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Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust
   

      The complete Anna Lee series –

Dupe (n.) Collins 1980
Bad Company (n.) Collins 1982
Stalker (n.) Collins 1984
Head Case (n.) Collins 1985
Under Contract (n.) Collins 1986
Backhand (n.) Chatto 1991
Bucket Nut (n.) Chatto 1992 [with Eva Wylie]