Looking Back: More of Miss Withers

I have now read somewhat more than half of Stuart Palmer's books featuring Hildegarde Withers, the New York City schoolteacher who manages to spend a significant amount of her time solving murders with her (frequently frazzled) friend, homicide detective Oscar Piper. As a general rule, I really enjoy them - they're funny without being farcical, they often are built around so-called "impossible" crimes, and the central characters are thoroughly engaging.

I have reviewed several of these books, and you can find links to all the podcast audio reviews at this blog's backlist page (just scroll down to Stuart Palmer's name). Among my own favorites:

• Murder on Wheels. The second Miss Withers novel, it features an impossible murder - right on Fifth Avenue, in the middle of a rush hour snowstorm;
• Murder on the Blackboard. Another early outing, with a murder in the classroom across the hall from Hildy's room. Naturally, she has to get involved in the investigation. By the way, Palmer includes this wonderful description of Miss Withers in this book: "For those of my readers who are meeting Hildegarde Withers for the first time, let me inform them that she is in the neighborhood of forty – the close neighborhood – and that her face has something of the contour, and most of the characteristics, of a well-bred horse";
• The Puzzle of the Blue Banderilla, set in Mexico, moves Miss Withers and Inspector Piper to Mexico to deal with a spectacular and apparently impossible murder at a bullfight;
• The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan, which is the one I review this week, is among Palmer's best, combining a seemingly impossible murder - more than one, in fact - with some funny and smart scenes set in the movie business in Hollywood of the 1940s.

The links above, by the way, will take you to my blog entries about these specific titles. Now that The Mysterious Press and Open Road Integrated Media have released 16 of Palmer's novels as e-books, I strongly urge you, if you haven't already done so, to meet Miss Withers and Inspector Piper. They're really worth knowing.

Comments

[Peggy Ann]

Sounds like lots of fun to read will look for his books on Paperback Swap!

[Les Blatt]

The books are fun indeed, Peggy Ann. Several are available in paperback, so with any luck you may find them at Paperback Swap...

[Margot Kinberg]

Les - What a great post! Thanks :-). Oh, and you may want to look out for Monday's post on my blog...

[Les Blatt]

Hmm...could Miss Withers be making a guest appearance? Thanks, Margot!

[TracyK]

Thanks for this list of your favorite Miss Withers novels. I have been meaning to read (or re-read in some cases) some of that series, and I can't remember which ones were best. Also good to hear of the e-book releases, although I would rather find them in nice old paperback editions.

[Les Blatt]

Tracy, a number of them have also been republished as trade paperbacks by the Rue Morgue Press and should be pretty easy to find. I still have several more to be read in the series, but I have thoroughly enjoyed the ones I've finished.