by Carter Brown
1974 Signet
I have a weakness for Aussies and Brits doing hard-boiled American detective fiction, something about how they overdo the slang. I've read one Carter Brown before and enjoyed it - it was a light, funny, fast moving detective story.
This one, not so much. This was the last of the Mavis Seidlitz stories. Mavis is the ditsy secretary of a private eye who stumbles her way to accidentally solving cases, while getting kidnapped, beat up, and sexually menaced along the way. This kind of thing doesn't age well, and even by 1974 I'm sure it was wearing thin.
Here, Mavis is pretending to be a reclusive singer to lure out the mob figures who want to force her to sign a recording contract. Most of the plot involves her panties being pulled down to see if she has or doesn't have a tattoo.
Doesn't work as a mystery, not particularly funny, and didn't even have the charm of leaning into the "pop-speak" of those way-out rockers.
Paperback from Amazon
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