Rubies, Emeralds and Diamonds

Private detective Petunia Best (ex-WAAF) and her partner, Max Frend (ex-British Intelligence) are hired to investigate the disappearance of a young woman and her priceless jewels by the insurance company who'd insured them. Nosing around the small seaside village of Chipley, where she'd lived with her mother, the two soon discover that Red Carter, stunningly beautiful, vivacious, captivating, had won hearts and made enemies with equal abandon. Now they have to figure out what happened to her -- and by whose hand. Time for another of Petunia's suspect charts!

[photo of Chetwynd from an ebay listing, photographer is Gordon Anthony]

First, off, there's no romance for the first-person narrator. I kept waiting for something to develop between her and her partner, Max, but their relationship remains bickeringly, affectionately, platonic. I can't seem to get my hands on their previous installment, Death has Ten Thousand Doors. I assume the vagueness about their backstory would have been cleared up there.

Even so, I enjoyed this one. It's got a kind of a hardboil-inflected-Golden-Age flair (indeed, Ten Thousand seems to have been set at a house party) and Petunia is smart and entertaining. It's nice to see a woman in the role of cynical gumshoe -- who, in this case, is also a bit of a bombshell, and uses it to professional advantage. And some of her lines are very funny. Interviewing a handsy business man: "I got the address and telephone number, chucked back a few dumbcracks, and pushed off to the nearest telephone." (125) At a Bohemian party: "Never expected to see you here," he said, reproachfully, in the tone of someone who is offered his sister in a favourite brothel." (135)

As is typical of vintage fare, much of the subtext for the modern reader is how challenging sexism made women's lives. Sexual harrassment is endemic to Petunia's job -- she's frequently pawed -- and there's a huge double-standard applied to the beautiful, doomed Red: she's a "slut" and a "bitch" for having lovers, though no such opprobrium attaches to them. Chetwynd builds up a surprisingly nuanced picture of her -- the one character who never appears in person -- and much of this is rooted in Petunia's interest in, and sympathy towards, her as a young woman in a world that objectifies, uses, and, too often, victimizes. That said, the book's full of strong female characters, good and bad, who are definitely out there exercising their agency, whatever the constraints.

The mystery's not particularly baffling -- but it's worth an afternoon's read.

Flag: Very brief scene with insensitive language re. a black nightclub singer.