This old mystery, written in 1938, is a doozy. And, it qualifies for RIP XIX!
After losing her job through no fault of her own, Gwynne Dacres decides she has to move out of her apartment. She takes a couple of rooms in a rooming house owned by Mrs. Garr. Although the house is dreary, the rooms are spacious and nice—and available at a cheap rent.
Once she moves in, she is taken aback by Mrs. Garr’s behavior, popping in every time she moves furniture, and also her stinginess about hot water. But worse, at night she feels as if the house is listening for something.
Her rooms are on the ground floor with a door to the back overlooking a steep hill. One morning she goes outside and sees a dead body lying on the ground below the property. He is identified as Mr. Zeitman, a local gangster. The conclusion is that the area behind the house made an easy dumping ground.
Things keep happening, though. Gwynne sees a stranger dart down the stairs. She hears footsteps at night. Someone breaks in and is clearly looking for something.
Then Mrs. Garr goes on an outing to Chicago with her niece and doesn’t return. When her niece comes over, the residents find she may never have gone. She is finally found dead inside the kitchen that she always keeps locked.
Gwynne has gotten acquainted with another lodger, Mr. Hodge Kistler, who owns a local newspaper, and together they begin talking over the string of events. When Lieutenant Strom comes into the investigation, he begins to involve Gwynne because she keeps discovering things that his men have missed.
Then one night someone knocks Gwynne over the head.
Gwynne is 1930s smart and sassy. The story is fast-moving and it’s hard to know what’s going on. Once the investigation gets going, Mrs. Garr is connected to a horrible crime from years before, and connections begin to be made with some of the lodgers. This is quite a fun book, deeply entertaining.
What? Me Read? 
this does sound fun, I love a sassy 30’s heroine! what is a doozy? It’s a great word and I want to use it!
Oh, gosh, I have to look up doozy now. It’s an old-fashioned word that I’ve heard all my life, so I never bothered to see what it actually means. The online definition says something extraordinary or impressive, so maybe I overstated it. I have just heard it always (but not often) in terms of something pretty great. Surprisingly, the definition says it is often used in a negative sense, but I don’t recall ever hearing it used in a negative sense. Well, maybe something like “That tornado was a doozy,” and I don’t think anyone would say that if there were a lot of people killed or a horrible amount of damage, just more if they were scared by it. I think it’s not often used to mean really extraordinary, because the example I saw online was “You took so many pictures of your puppies that some of them should be doozies.” So that makes me feel it’s used like younger people than I use the word “awesome,” only a bit more impressive than the stuff I’ve heard referred to as awesome lately.
Did that make any sense?
that all makes perfect sense, and I realise now that I could have just looked it up my self – thank you! I love how words just become a part of our lexicon!
Yep!
I’ve never heard of this book or author, but it does sound entertaining!
It’s definitely that!
Ooh, this sounds like great fun and perfect for the season! Definitely one for the wishlist! (I think “doozy” means “pretty great” too, btw.)
Absolutely.