STUART PALMER – The Penguin Pool Murder. Hildegarde Withers #1. Brentano’s, hardcover, 1931. Bantam, paperback, March 1986. Intl Polygonics Ltd, paperback, 1990, Rue Morgue Press, trade paperback, 2007. Penzler Books, trade paperback, 2023.

   Miss Hildegarde Withers’s first meets Inspector Piper in this case, and she helps him solve a murder that takes place in the New York Aquarium, not long after the stock market crash of 1929. They also seem to rush off to be married at the end, but do they?

   Definitely an oldie, but also definitely a goodie. One does wonder, however, how Miss Withers is so readily allowed to tag along with Piper, in so many violations of proper police procedure. In that sense, this is pure fantasy, from another era altogether.