"TOO DARN HOT," by Sandra Scoppettone, 268 pages, $24.95
Even if you like Raymond Chandler crime novels, you will have to be open to satire to enjoy "Too Darn Hot," Sandra Scoppettone's enjoyable novel about Faye Quick, a 26-year-old private investigator with a quick tongue.
Predictably, the story starts with a beautiful woman. Clair Turner is emotional over the disappearance of her boyfriend, Private Charlie Ladd, on leave from the Army. Soon after Quick takes the case, she finds a corpse in Ladd's hotel room — but it isn't Ladd. It turns out to be his friend, also an Army private. So did Ladd kill his friend? Where is he?
That's the first mystery but it isn't the last.
Heavily dialogue-ridden, this book is a bundle of quotations, and they are rapid-fire style phrases common to smart-aleck detectives. Sometimes it sounds like Joe Friday. But they are words and phrases, colloquialisms that were common in the '40s.
Ya sorta hafta git yerself around the vernacular: "Ya never eat anything — you dig in! Did ya see the dame in the jalopy?" One thing's for sure: " . . . it's really hot! Walking the streets was like slogging through melted marshmallows. Ya betcha!"
Poor Quick is drenched most of the time, but she is so good and aggressive at what she does, and so dedicated to solving a case, that her personal life is almost nonexistent. She is romantically interested in police detective Johnny, but he is depressed because he almost never sees her.
She sometimes pauses for "a cup a java and a piece of apple pie with cheddar cheese on top."
The story has numerous twists and turns, surprises and murders, but it is gently covered by the memorable aura of the 1940s, including big-band music, unique hairdos (snoods), the use of multiple movie star names, words that run together ("Whaddyathink?") and, strangely, endless cigarette smoke. Virtually everyone lights a cig before they converse, and often they drink an RC. (Remember Royal Crown Cola?)
Quick is constantly on the go, hunting down leads, doing interviews with suspects or potential witnesses, until she finally solves the case.
World War II is an invisible presence in the background, except for notes on the difficulty of finding so many things that people want, such as sugar and quality clothing.
E-mail: dennis@desnews.com