ANITA BLACKMON – Murder à la Richelieu. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1937. William Heinemann, UK, hardcover, 1938, as The Hotel Richelieu Murders.

   As the oldest and richest resident of the Hotel Richelieu, Miss Adelaide Adams, a spinster sometimes called the “Old Battle-Ax,” sees all and knows all of what goes on in the hotel. Oh, except for the blackmailing, the prostitution, the body in her room hanged and with its throat slit, the — but to go on would be to give away an essential plot element.

   Two more murders occur, both of the victims like the first killed twice, if such a thing is possible. Almost as bad, Miss Adelaide is discovered several times minus her false hair and teeth.

   Miss Adelaide detects in her own way. She’s a lot like Louisa Revell’s Miss Julia Tyler — rather inept. Still, it’s through her efforts that the killer is unmasked. A quite enjoyable novel, and I am beginning a search for Blackmon’s only other mystery, also featuring Miss Adelaide.

   Warning: The setting here is the South, probably the Deep South. At one point Miss Adelaide says, “…no well brought-up Southern woman ever read Uncle Tom’s Cabin or allowed that obnoxious book to be mentioned in her presence.” The lady’s views on blacks are those of the times and the place, which, alas, were not enlightened.

NOTE:   The other mystery-solving adventure of Miss Adelaide referred to by Bill was There Is No Return (Doubleday, 1938). For a long, detailed overview of Anita Blackmon’s writing career, check out this post by Curt Evans which appeared earlier on this blog.