It was a welcome diversion to enter the mad, alcohol-drenched world of Craig Rice for a few hours as I sat down to read her book My Kingdom for a Hearse. It stars the detective team of Jake and Helene Justus as well as lawyer John J. Malone. This is a sleuthing trio that gets a whole lot more talented after a couple of drinks, and the adventures they embark upon are delightful.
The story starts when John J. Malone is hired by Hazel Swackhammer, who is the head honcho over at Delora Deanne, who is basically a cosmetics company. Delora is the model who does all the advertising, and as Malone learns, she isn’t real—all the images of her are composite shots of five different young ladies— one provides the face, another the hands, and so on, with one of the five providing her voice on radio broadcasts. But there’s been a distressing event— Hazel has received a package, with a pair of gloves inside… but the gloves are not empty! Distressingly, he finds that the model who poses for Delora’s hands has gone missing…
