A Zebra Mystery Puzzler #29 - You'll Die, Darling

After an eight-book break, author Martin Grove (a/k/a Marjorie J. Grove) returns to this series with his sixth murder mystery featuring gossip columnist-turned-sleuth Maxine Reynolds.  But this book marks more than just the return of Grove and his spunky columnist.  This is the first book to feature the completely revamped cover format!  Gone are the full cover painted scenes, and in their place, the publisher instead placed the cover art within the glass portion of a large magnifying glass, which lay diagonally across a colored box, with a white outline surrounding it all.  In the top right-hand corner, the number of the book in the series now appears in white against a different colored background.  Thus, the cover illustration has considerably less space within which to display a clue to the mystery, and there is now a much less chance of catching any artist signature that might give a clue to the identity of the cover artist.  I'm not sure why they chose to go in this direction, unless it was simply to set the series apart from all the other mystery novels on the shelves at the time and give it a distinctive look that would set it apart from the rest.

 

You'll Die, Darling has Maxine Reynolds hunting for the killer of a country-western singer who was preparing the change direction with her career by leaving behind her former singing partners and entering the rock-n-roll realm. Max may have been the last person to see the singer alive, as Cindy Chester went missing just as she was about to head to San Francisco to put on a show that would start her new direction.  But the story does not open with her murder; rather, it opens with her kidnapping, as her agent, Kevin Belvedere, calls Max to see if Cindy said anything to her during the interview that would explain her failure to appear in San Francisco for her scheduled concert.  A ransom demand, a scramble to get together the money, and a police stake out to capture the kidnapper lead to even more questions when the man who ultimately picks up the cash is only an intermediary - and the post office box number to where he is to mail the money does not exist!

 

Grove gives readers a twisting tale of murder, mystery, jealousy, bitterness, and revenge as Max digs deeper into the kidnapping, only to discover the songstress dead in her garage from apparent suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning.  The police inspector is satisfied, but Max is not.  The only clues she has are a few strands of blond hair in the dead woman's fist, as well as a specially made key that has the logo scraped off.  With those two things to get her started, Max sets out to question everyone involved - from the dead woman's manager, to her two former singing partners, to the singer's abusive boyfriend, to one of the former partner's drug-dealing boyfriend.  One or more them wanted  Cindy Chester dead, but the questions remain - who and why?

 

The identity of the killer is not exactly obvious, but it is not too difficult to spot.  Only a couple of the interior illustrations hold clues to the killer; the rest have to be gleaned from the story itself.  And since we are on the topic of those internal illustrations, Sanford Hoffman is once again the one providing the framed drawings in this book.  However, despite how much I normally enjoy his framed illustrations, the ones in this book seem a bit off.  For example, the first illustration (on page 65 - see below), the middle-man who is arrested for picking up the package filled with money - if you look carefully, you will see that his left hand has two thumbs!  The second picture, on page 78, shows one of Cindy's two singing partners holding a round object in her hand; however, there is nothing in the story that indicates she is holding anything, and the circular object in the illustration is no plain there is no telling what it actually is.  In the third illustration on page 113, Cindy's manager is drawn holding a drink in his right hand - but the hand itself is oddly elongated, way longer than any human hand could possibly be.  The fourth and fifth illustrations are normal, but the last one, on page 173, shows three men who show up at Max's door uninvited, and the one in front is clearly holding up a gun in his right hand; yet, in the story, the man has no gun, and there is not even any mention of a gun anywhere in that scene!  Definitely not Hoffman's finest work in the series, that's for sure!

 

The cover art, limited as it is, has no identification as to the artist.  The scene nearly describes the moment when Max comes across Cindy Chester's dead body in the car in her garage, except in the story, she slides into the seat next to the singer, she is not standing outside the car looking down at her.  The artist does manage to sneak in the strands of blond hair in Cindy's hand, which I'm assuming is meant to be the clue on the covers, as promised in the cover blurb.  What is a little weird is it appears the car in which she is sitting had two gear shifts.  Perhaps one is meant to be an emergency brake, although I will admit, I've never seen any car that has an emergency brake so far behind the gear shift as the one in this painted cover.

 

While this particular story is not Grove's best work in the series, it is still a fairly good read.  As expected the obvious suspect is not the culprit (and in fact, that particular person winds up dead themselves!), and the real culprit is not really a big surprise.  I do like, though, that Grove always has his sleuth talk through all of the clues that led her to figure out whodunnit, so that the reader knows exactly what they should have seen (if they didn't) while reading the story.  Plus, Grove's books are always fun because of Pamela Tooth, better known as "Toothy."  Her quick wit and sarcasm make the whole thing worth it!

 

Sadly, there is only one more Grove mystery left in this series (book 39), so I can't wait to see what Maxine Reynolds' final case has in store for us!

 

RATING:  7 apartment complex pools filled with green water out of 10 for attempting to mislead the reader (and poor Max) and hide the real killer's identity for as long as possible!