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SHAMUS IN THE GREEN ROOM
by Susan Kandel
William Morrow, May 2006
336 pages
$23.95
ISBN: 0060581093


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

This is Susan Kandel's third mystery featuring Cece Caruso, a biographer of mystery writers with a penchant for both vintage fashion and getting involved in real-life murders. Cece's first book was a biography of Dashiell Hammett. Now, ten years later, the book is being made into a movie entitled DASH! and starring Rafe Simic, who will play a dual role as both Hammett and his fictional sleuth, Sam Spade.

Rafe Simic is a hunky star, well-known for his many box office successes, and in many ways a natural for the role. The problem is that Rafe doesn't like to read and has a short attention span, so the producers have hired Cece to give him a crash course on the life and times of Dashiell Hammett. In the hope that exposure to Sam Spade's surroundings will help Rafe soak up his role, Cece has agreed to travel with him to San Francisco and fill him in on the details of Hammett's life as they tour his old haunts.

They barely arrive in San Francisco, however, when Rafe receives a call asking him to return to Los Angeles to identify a body. Rafe asks Cece to come along for moral support. When they arrive at the morgue, Rafe identifies the mystery woman as his old girlfriend Maren Levander. But Cece has seen a photo of Maren and knows that this woman looks nothing like the woman in that picture.

Of course Cece wants to know what would prompt Rafe to lie about something so serious. And more questions crop up as Cece digs further: Did the mystery woman commit suicide as the authorities believe? What is it that Rafe and his business manager, who is also Maren's brother, are working so hard to cover up? Very soon Cece finds herself in the middle of a full-scale investigation of the woman's murder, and she uncovers some pretty big secrets.

SHAMUS is, for the most part, a well-plotted and entertaining mystery. I was bothered by a few details, however. In this book, Kandel focuses far more on the mystery, leaving the details of Hammett's life and the history of California a far less prominent role in the narrative than they enjoyed in her previous books. Because the book is less discursive, Cece's recklessly stupid approach to investigation by confronting murderers alone in remote locations is less easily forgiven.

I was also disappointed to find that Cece's pals Lael and Bridget are nearly absent from this book and the sub-plots involving Cece's daughter Annie and her boyfriend Peter Gambino seem tacked on. Having said that, the mystery itself is stronger, the plot is more intriguing and the pacing of the crime-solving better sustained than in her prior books.

Perry Mason and Nancy Drew mysteries, the subjects of the two previous books, are both light, popular fiction. It might be that Hammett's tragic life and his noir stories are too dark to sustain the fizzy mood of a chick-lit novel and that's what's prevented Kandel from achieving the perfect balance of humor, history and subject that she managed in her debut.

No matter, though. Although SHAMUS IN THE GREEN ROOM is missing the sparkle and depth of Kandel's brilliant I DREAMED I MARRIED PERRY MASON, it's still a fine way to pass a summer afternoon.

Reviewed by Carroll Johnson, July 2006

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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