THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES

Greetings dear readers and welcome to blog post number 1501! I'm closing in on the sixth anniversary of the blog (started in June 2012). Funny, I never thought I'd want to write a blog until my lovely wife Judy set this one up for me and told me to "start writing." Hard to believe it's been this many years and this many entries. Hope you've enjoyed reading what I've written and sincerely wish that you'll stick around for the next 1500 entries. Thanks!

As regular readers of this blog know, Hard Case Crime is my favorite contemporary book publisher. Whether it's reprinting vintage crime novels or giving first timers a chance at crafting a mystery, you're in for good read when you see the Hard Case Crime logo. THE CORPSE WORE PASTIES is no exception.

Published in December 2009 (#62 in the HCC series), CORPSE is a rollicking who-dunit set in the world of New York City's burlesque sub-culture. The author, Jonny Porkpie, is both the real life "Burlesque Mayor of New York City" and the detective hero of this breezy, funny, fast paced little murder mystery. Victoria, one of the girls in the show that Jonny is emceeing, dies at the climax of her act, an act stolen from another performer. For the grand finale, Victoria drinks a bottle of rat poison, but someone has substituted a bottle of the real thing for the prop bottle. And guess who handed Victoria the deadly bottle? Yep, our man Jonny, which makes him the NYPD's suspect number one and only in the dancer's murder.

Jonny goes on the lam to clear his name and solve the mystery. He's got a who's who of burlesque stars as suspects, all of which had motives and means (and, alas, alibis). And what about the weird guy on the front row at the show the night Veronica died, the one in the overcoat, sunglasses and scraggly beard? Is he merely a perv or could he be the killer? And can Jonny find the guy before the cops catch up to him?

I thoroughly enjoyed CORPSE. It's both a fun murder mystery and a peek into a world I know nothing about. I do have one minor quibble though. There's a wild chase scene across the Brooklyn Bridge in which Jonny is pursued by the members of a heavy metal band. The chase takes place late at night, after 2:00 a.m., when the bars are closed. Jonny makes his escape by leaping from the bridge onto the open top deck of a double decker tourist bus, a bus which carries tourists and a guide. At that hour of the morning? I've been to New York a couple of times and I've taken a bus tour but I don't think they run at two o'clock in the morning. Or do they? Can someone from New York answer this question?

Quibble aside, CORPSE is a winner. It's not the greatest Hard Case Crime novel I've read but it's far from the worst (which would be THE COLORADO KID by Stephen King).

 Check it out.