Berkley, July 2003, 5.99, 304 pp.
ISBN 0425191052
After eloping, Bob and Paige Turner moved into a small Brooklyn apartment for a month of connubial bliss before he went to boot camp and ended up in a firefight in Korea where he got killed. Two and a half years later, his widow Paige is living in a small duplex apartment on Delancey Street working as an editorial assistant for Daring Detective magazine. Paige's real goal is to be a staff writer and create true crime stories but in 1954 women were regarded as capable of only being office help.
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When Babs Costock's murdered body is found in Woolworth's and her picture is run in the newspapers, Paige recognizes her as a woman who came to the magazine's office in the hopes of getting a job modeling for the cover. Paige thinks she's found the story that can get her a promotion so she starts investigating the victim's life. She learns the down side of a case of her own as her life is threatened more than once by various characters who want her to stop snooping.
The first Paige Turner mystery is a real page-turner. Anyone who has lived in New York City in the fifties will realize that the author has captured the essence of the time and place. The protagonist is a gutsy and strong willed woman who refuses to let the male dominated power elite keep her down or stop her from getting what she wants. MURDERERS PREFER BLONDES is a delightful historical amateur sleuth tale that is very atmospheric and plays up the nostalgia angle.
Harriet Klausner
The review of this Book prepared by Harriet Klausner
