Kathryn Miller Haines The War Against Miss Winter

The War Against Miss Winter

Kathryn Miller Haines

Harper, Jun 2007, $13.95

ISBN: 9780061139789

As the "final casting call" of 1942 takes a bow, in New York wannabe actress Rosie Winter earns a living working as the personal assistant at McCain & Son sleazy detective agency. This office gig pays the rent and buys rationed food as she has not had a paying theatre job in six months. Upon coming to work, she realizes her latest job may have ended as she finds her boss Jim McCain hanging in his office closet with his hands and neck tied with a phone cord. NYPD Lieutenant Schmidt detested Jim, claiming he was once a crooked cop and a terrible sleuth; he gleefully declares his death a suicide, but Rosie questions their rush to judgment because of the tied hands.

However, Rosie has no time to worry about Jim's demise. A playwright and an affluent widow hire Rosie to find a missing play. She enlists her best friend Jayne "America's squeakheart" to help her investigate on the mean streets of Broadway and off Broadway while considering god forbid the barbaric boroughs.

This is a wonderful amusing historical mystery that lampoons the theater and provides acerbic asides on WW II. The story line contains a strong support cast who bring to life Manhattan in 1943. However, it is Rosie who makes the tale fun as she flexes muscle and concludes riveting is not her vocation, but sleuthing is (at least until the next gig) as she understands the difference between the amateur and the pro is the pay. Kathryn Miller Haines writes an excellent 1940s whodunit filled with vigor and satire as Rosie the actress becomes Rosie the detective.

Harriet Klausner