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Title details for Too Darn Hot by Sandra Scoppettone - Available

Too Darn Hot

A Novel

#2 in series

by Sandra Scoppettone
Laura Hicks
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

Awash in tears, salesgirl Claire Turner arrives at the Times Square office of private investigator Faye Quick and begs Faye to find her missing boyfriend, army private Charlie Ladd, who has been AWOL for three days. Faye takes the case, which leads her to Charlie's room at the Hotel Commodore-where she finds an unknown man-naked, dead and stuffed inside a wardrobe. Who is the John Doe, and what connection does he have to the missing Charlie Ladd? While Faye detects, the mercury rises practically to the boiling point in the city that never sleeps.

  • Creators

  • Series

    Faye Quick

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    April 1, 2007

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780792746249
      • File size: 279520 KB
      • Duration: 09:42:19

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Faye Quick is a detective in noir 1940s' New York City, where lots of women do men's work because there's a war on. Faye's secretary, Birdie, is Laura Hicks's masterpiece here, played as a cross between The New Woman and Betty Boop; you can practically hear her chewing gum and buffing her nails. It's all great Runyonesque fun, with feisty Faye a sort of Humphrey Bogart in a sundress. Her client is pretty Claire Turner, whose soldier boyfriend, Charlie, is missing, but his is not the naked dead body Faye finds in Charlie's hotel room. Even if you solve the puzzle before Faye does, Hicks keeps the action sizzling to the end. B.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 3, 2006
      Like Scoppettone's This Dame for Hire
      (2005), which introduced Faye Quick, the semitough New York steno who turns private eye after her boss goes off to fight in WWII, this sequel vividly recreates 1943 Manhattan—the rumble of the subway train, the rattle of the taxi in a city not slowed down for a second by a war or an oppressive heat wave. Faye's voice is again pitch perfect, but the story isn't as strong as the earlier novel's. Claire Turner, a blonde beauty who works as a salesgirl at Wanamaker's department store, plays on Faye's sympathies to get her to agree to spend some of her time looking for Claire's missing GI boyfriend, Charlie Ladd. (Movie names dot every page: not only Turner and Ladd but folks called Widmark, Byington, Duff and Cummings have roles.) Of course, the too-good-to-be-true Charlie turns out to be just that, murders are committed both coolly and in hot blood, and all the while our very interesting Faye does a great imitation of the sort of dame Ida Lupino was born to play.

    • Library Journal

      December 1, 2006
      The scene is New York City in the 1940s. Claire Turner, a salesgirl whose soldier boyfriend Charlie Ladd is missing, asks Faye Quick, a wisecracking private eye, to find him. Faye goes to Charlie's hotel room and discovers a dead body stuffed in the closet. As Faye attempts to solve the mystery, she deals with an array of interesting characters: Claire's sister Louise, who claims Charlie raped her; Charlie's anti-Semitic, aristocratic father; Claire's dysfunctional family; and a wounded veteran who loves Claire. Faye sees through the lies and deceptions of these individuals and finds Charlie, who turns out to be the aggressor rather than the victim. Laura Hicks does a good reading job; some of her male characters sound alike, but she captures Faye's wisecracking, tough, and vulnerable character very well. Recommended for public libraries.Ilka Gordon, Park Synagogue Lib., Pepper Pike, OH

      Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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