The Wrong Murder

The Wrong Murder

Rating

8.5

The Pequod Review:

Craig Rice (1908-1957; pseudonym of Georgiana Randolph) was an immensely popular crime writer in the 1940s and 1950s — she even appeared on the cover of Time magazine in 1946 — and her books were generally humorous detective novels set in her hometown of Chicago. Her most famous series starred John J. Malone (a small-time lawyer) and Jake Justus (a rowdy press agent), two amateur Chicagoans who found themselves pulled into a variety of unusual criminal investigations. The Wrong Murder is the third book in the series, and involves a local socialite who bets Jake at a party that she can kill someone without getting caught. When an apparent motive-less murder takes place, John and Jake (along with Jake's wife, Helene Brand) investigate whether the socialite did it. This is a charming Chicago murder mystery, with a solid plot, witty prose and a pitch-perfect ending.