Murder Within Murderby Frances Lockridge, Richard Lockridge
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Mr. & Mrs. North #10
Publication Date: January 1, 1946
Genre: mystery: golden age (1920-1949)
Pages: 301
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of crime
Mr. and Mrs. North seek the killer of a terribly unpleasant society woman
Miss Amelia Gipson doesn’t tolerate foolishness. She doubts she’s ever made a mistake, and it’s unlikely she would change anything about her life—even if she knew she was in danger. While researching a famous murder case at the public library, she becomes ill at her desk. Within minutes, she’s dead. Miss Gipson would be pleased with the coroner. He doesn’t muck around when delivering the cause of death. There’s simply no question: She was poisoned.
Fortunately, Miss Gipson was one of Jerry North’s authors, which means that the accomplished amateur sleuth has another case on his hands. With the help of his utterly brilliant—if slightly strange—wife, Pamela, Mr. North soon finds that the question isn’t who wanted Miss Gipson dead, but who didn’t.
Murder within Murder is the 10th book in the Mr. and Mrs. North Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
Murder Within Murder is the 10th book in the long running Mr. & Mrs. North series, which spanned two decades. The first book, The Norths Meet Murder, was published in 1940; the final book, Murder by the Book, was released in 1963. I previously posted about the first three Mr. & Mrs. North books in 2020, in a post titled Mr. and Mrs. North and Their Glam and Fab Murder Life.
Since 2020, I have been making my way through the 14 books that are available from my local library. I’ve read 1 through 8, and for some reason my library skipped #9, Death of a Tall Man, picking up with the series at book 10. Sadly, I’m nearly to the end of what’s available to me for free. Once I finish with the library inventory, Open Road Media/Mysterious Press has reprinted the entire series for the kindle, and I will have to decide if I am going to buy book 9, and 16 through 26.
I probably will, because I love this series. It’s light and funny, without being twee or cozy. Pam and Jerry North are exceptionally entertaining amateur sleuths, constantly getting themselves mixed up in murderous happenings. If Tommy & Tuppence Beresford hosted cocktail parties in a glamorous 1940’s NYC walkup, they might have been Pam and Jerry North.
The side characters are also so good – their Detective friend, Lt. Weigand, is solidly pleasant without being bumbling, and his wife, Dorian, is a nice additional to the crew.
This specific mystery is a good one as well – some of the series entries are stronger than others, and I would rate this one fairly highly. It has one of the victims that you love to hate, as a reader, everyone has a motive, and there are suspects galore.
Given how popular mystery series adaptations are, I’m a little bit surprised that no one has rediscovered the Norths because, with the right casting, it would make a great Netflix/Hulu/Prime series.
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I read a couple of these, the first two or three, I think, but maybe they were too light for me. Something didn’t retain my attention even though I usually appreciate humor.