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Currently reading a handful of Craig Rice novels from the 40s. She was an American woman writer (Craig was her maiden surname, Rice her first married surname) and lived a fairly high-speed life herself. The few I have read are of the Jake and Helene Justus/J J Malone series, and can best be described as screwball whodunits, in the tradition of 1940s movie screwball comedies, but also having a bit of The Thin Man back up the family tree. (The characters spend a fair amount of time tucking into the booze.)
She was reputed to have written the two novels by Gypsy Rose Lee, but I gather this has now been disproved.
The ones I have read are (in order of publication):
1: 8 Faces at 3
2: The Corpse Steps Out
3: The Wrong Murder
4: The Right Murder
5: Trial by Fury
6: The Big Midget Murders
7: Having a Wonderful Crime.
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