Thu 22 Jan 2015
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: ZELDA POPKIN – Death Wears a White Gardenia.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[4] Comments
William F. Deeck
ZELDA POPKIN – Death Wears a White Gardenia. J. B. Lippincott, hardcover, 1938. Red Arrow Books #5, digest-sized paperback. 1939. Dell #13, paperback, 1943.
Mary Carner, department-store detective, appeared in five books, of which this is the first. At least in this novel, the store is Jeremiah Blankfort and Company in New York City, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an appearance by the Governor’s wife.
Also adding to the festivities is the discovery of a corpse that turns out to have been Andrew McAndrew, credit manager of Blankfort’s and a chap, it would appear, given to blackmailing married customers who charge items for their girl friends. He also had his own girl friends, one of whom is carrying his child.
The suspects are limited to those who were working in the store the previous evening before the anniversary celebration, but that is nonetheless a rather large number. McAndrew’s fed-up wife and brother-in-law and a junky but talented shoplifter add to the total.
Mary Carner is convinced that the murder was committed by an employee of Blankfort’s. That part of the investigation is stymied since the store’s owner will not allow the employees to be questioned until the sale day is over. This is, after all, still in the depths of the Depression, and the department store’s finances are rather rocky.
Better than Spencer Dean’s department-store mysteries, but not much better. One hopes that Popkin improved in her later novels.
The Mary Carner (Whittaker) series —
Death Wears a White Gardenia. Lippincott, 1938.
Murder in the Mist. Lippincott, 1940.
Time Off for Murder. Lippincott, 1940.
Dead Man’s Gift. Lippincott, 1941.
No Crime for a Lady. Lippincott, 1942.
Zelda Popkn wrote two other works of crime fiction, So Much Blood (Lippincott, 1944), and A Death of Innocence (Lippincott, 1971) which was the basis of a TV movie of the same title. (CBS, 1971 with Shelley Winters and Arthur Kennedy).
For more on the author herself, here’s a link to her Wikipedia page.
January 22nd, 2015 at 5:28 pm
She never really sounded like a writer whose work I would enjoy that much, but still that is a great name for any writer.
I think I may have tried to read DEAD MAN’S GIFT in hardcover picked up at a second hand book store, but it could have been one of the others. Obviously I wasn’t impressed, and I’m almost certain I didn’t finish it.
Obviously she was popular to some extent though to get that much paperback coverage.
January 22nd, 2015 at 5:58 pm
Except for TIME OFF FOR MURDER, all of the Mary Carner books were published by Dell in those famous mapback editions, so I must have them, but like you, I have never more than tried one without finishing it. Bill Deeck’s meh reaction to the one he read doesn’t really encourage me to try one again, but when the chance comes along I just might.
As for the popularity of her books, I’d hae to agree they were, but just as some authors today, her books may not have been meant for readers like Bill or you or me.
We also agree on something else. I love her name, too.
January 22nd, 2015 at 6:44 pm
Just added a link to this review, at the links at the start of my Popkin article:
http://mikegrost.com/moffett.htm#Popkin
Lots of people have weighed in on Popkin over the years, then and now.
I’ve only read two of her books. Need to catch up.
Her writing gets a spectacularly wide range of responses.
January 22nd, 2015 at 7:46 pm
Thanks for the link, Mike, and then of course the links to the many other sites where Popkin and her work are discussed online. One of the reasons she seems to still be known is that as a Jewish author, she wrote “one of the earliest American novels to focus on the Holocaust, and the first novel in English about the Israeli struggle for independence and survival in 1948.” This from an article about her by a grandson.
In terms of her mysteries, she is also noted to having created one of the first strong-minded female detectives. In a sense it doesn’t seem to matter that the overall critical reaction to the books themselves is mixed, but as to that, I’m now more inclined to read one and judge for myself.