John J. Malone was a Chicago lawyer in love. The object of his affections was a beautiful woman named Delora Deanne, whose perfect face, hands, legs, voice, torso and more all appear in a series of advertisements for the Delora Deanne line of beauty products - moisturizing creams and the like. Granted, Malone doesn't know her, but he'd certainly like to meet her. One morning, he gets a phone call from the not-so-charming Hazel Swackhammer, who apparently runs the Delora Deanne business: Delora Deanne wants to consult Malone on a serious legal matter. Ah, the break Malone had been waiting for! So he gets himself dressed up and goes off to meet Delora Deanne. And that, I regret to say, is when the dream falls apart. For Malone learns that all those very beautiful parts of Delora Deanne actually belong to several different women - one does the ads for leg products, another's hands are featured in gloves, a third's face appears in the advertising, and so on. The problem is that It wasn’t so much a matter of there being, really, “no” Delora Deanne. It was more a case of there being too many Delora Deannes. And Hazel Swackhammer - their boss - had received a strange package in the mail that morning. It contained a pair of gloves. I regret to say that the gloves weren't empty. And the Delora Deanne of the beautiful hands hadn't shown up for work that morning...
Welcome to the slightly mad, very funny (in a distinctly ghoulish way) world of author Craig Rice, and her often inebriated protagonist John J. Malone and his two close friends, Jake Justus and Helene Brand. That trio sets out to solve the mysteries of My Kingdom for a Hearse, in which the real focus of interest is on those body parts that keep turning up, even though a full (or at least more inclusive) body can't be found. The book, first published in 1956, was the last one written by Rice before her death, and it is the subject of today's audio review on the Classic Mysteries podcast. You can listen to the complete review by clicking here. My Kingdom for a Hearse is full of the dark humor, impossible situations and clever plots so typical of Rice's books. And the gruesome discovery of that package (and the swift arrival of another one), coupled with the DISappearance of more of the Delora Deanne models certainly make it appear that – how shall I put it – someone appears to be bent on disassembling the successful team of models. And so Malone – and the only friends he really trusts, Jake and Helene – find themselves searching for the truth about Delora Deanne (and for what appears to be a remarkably mobile dead body)– and every time they think they’ve pinned down a useful clue, another clue comes along to negate just about everything they’ve learned.
I hope I'm not making all this sound either too grim or too flip - it's neither. It is a very funny mystery with a surprisingly clever resolution. I recommend it heartily. It's available as an ebook; there also seem to be a reasonable number of old print editions floating around.
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