Rosemary Martin, Twist and Shout Murder

Twist and Shout Murder

Rosemary Martin

Signet, April 2006, $6.99, 304 pp.

ISBN 0451218191

After leaving her hometown of Richmond Virginia, for the excitement of New York City, secretary Bebe Bennett follows her boss, the handsome and sexy Bradley Williams, when he becomes head of the Ryan Modeling Agency. She loves him, even though he calls her "kid" because he is a decade older than her twenty-two. She does a lot to light his fire, including have her stewardess roommate buy her mod clothes, mini-skirts and go-go boots (after all the year is 1964.)

However, Bebe gets no satisfaction because Bradley is emotionally involved with the company's lead model, Suzie Wexford, a woman who knows she is beautiful and sexy, and uses her attributes to climb to the top of her profession. One night Bradley leaves Suzie's apartment to buy chocolate syrup, but when he comes back, he finds she is murdered, strangled with a scarf he gave her. The police, called by Suzie's neighbor, arrest him. Bebe intends to prove his innocence as she is sure that the killer is one of the many people who confided in her that they hated Suzie.

Using the vernacular of the youth of the swinging sixties, the music that was popular then, and the other aspects of the subculture of the teenage baby boomers, Rosemary Martin makes the era go-go in cool mod Technicolor. The heroine is an adorable character, a combination of steel and sock it to me vulnerability; readers hope that her boss sees her inner beauty and falls for her. There are plenty of suspects with viable motives, and guessing who the killer is becomes part of the fun of this wonderful historical (my God, my teen years are historical!) amateur sleuth mystery.