MELODIE JOHNSON HOWE – The Mother Shadow. Claire Conrad & Maggie Hill #1. Viking, hardcover 1878. Penguin, paperback, 1990.

   I was looking forward to reading this one, mostly because of the Nero Wolfe-Archie Goodwin connection made on the back cover. I can see the connection, but sorry to say this is a book I’m going to have to think about twice before I can even tell you if I’n going to keep it or not.

   Maggie Hill plays Archie. She’s a secretary whose employer makes out a new will, gives her the only copy of the codicil, then goes upstairs to blow his brains out. Claire Conrad is the Pl who must be moved to start a case, and in this case what gets her going is the fact that she’s supposed to inherit the dead man’s four million dollar coin collection, but  the copy of the will that was given to Maggie has somehow disappeared.

   Blackmail is also involved, as well as the many disgruntled members of the dead man’s family, none of whom are likeable in the least. I couldn’t much follow the plot, to tell you the truth, but for the most part, that’s not really the point.

   What”s meant to happen, I think, is that you’re supposed to be instantly enthralled at the sight of sassy, impudent detectives at work, but I’m just guessing  — and obviously I wasn’t. (That they are both female has nothing to do with it. At least I can’t imagine that it does.) .

   Maggie is the kind of person who worries and frets and keeps asking herself questions, at least until she finds herself working for Claire Conrad, who quickly takes charge of her life, and in the process, yes,  does a almost perfect female impersonation of Nero Wolfe. This is obviously a tricky maneuver, and she overdoes it. She makes Wolfe’9 eccentricities seem like minor peculiarities, which is fine for a while, but be warned: a whole book that sparkles as loudly as this one does is also awfully hard on the eyes.

   If you were to pin me down, I’d have to admit there were places that were moderately amusing. The problem is, I’m convinced they were meant to be immensely amusing. Read this one at your own risk.

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FOOTNOTE: Have I kept the book? In this case, so far, the answer ;s yes,  but it was close.(You’d know better than to ask, though, if you’d ever seen some of the other books I’ve ended up keeping, and this one’s a long way from the level of a good deal  of them.)