Chasing the Devil: A Dorothy Parker Mystery

Dorothy Parker Mysteries #2

by Agata Stanford

It wasn't enough that the Toy Soldier should meet his disastrous end on the heels of Felix the Cat's midair explosion over Broadway at the first Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, but to add insult to injury, Dorothy Parker comes face to face with a crazed murderer. War-weary Americans are taking a sober look at our nation's Bill of Rights at a time when no one cares to be sober, even though sobriety is the law of the land. The Scopes Monkey Trial has tested separation of church and state, and although sixty years have passed since the Thirteenth Amendment became law, Negros still suffer indignities from the resurging power of the Klan after the release of Birth of a Nation. While Parker and Benchley search for an assassin, the reader is joyously carried along to Harlem's famous Cotton Club, to the opening night of Noel Coward's new play, Hay Fever, for a romp through the University Club with Groucho Marx and a chase through Hubert's Museum, winding up high above a jam-packed crowd in Times Square on New Year's Eve.

Genres: Mystery

346 pages, Paperback

First published November 22, 2010

About the author

AGATA PUCCIO STANFORD trained as an actress, singer and dancer, beginning with her attendance at the prestigious High School of Performing Arts in New York City. She continued her studies with Bobby Lewis and William Hickey; musical comedy with Merv Nelson, and dance with Tony Award Winning Choreographer, Henry La Tang. A past member of Actors Equity and Screen Actors Guild, Agata co-founded The Nucleus Theatre on West 54th Street in NYC. There, she acted in/or directed 14 Equity productions. Agata has performed on tour, on and Off-Broadway, as a nightclub performer in New York and resort clubs and appeared in more than fifty films and 30 stage plays. Retiring to raise a family, Agata returned to theatre in 1990 when she and friends formed non-profit Original Works Repertory Theatre in the Saratoga & Lake George region of upstate New York, at The Playhouse at Goose Crossing, presenting new and classic works for the stage. She has written seven plays and two musicals. She is currently at work on the fourth novel of her Dorothy Parker Mystery Series.
“As a student at The High School of the Performing Arts, when it was located on 46th Street, I’d often walk by The Algonquin Hotel. I was fascinated with the stories of the famous Round Table luncheons and its eclectic membership, from Harpo to Heifetz. As a person of the Theatre, I’d read countless theatrical biographies over the past 40 years, many about the lives of Round Tablers. After awhile I felt I knew so many of them, not so much as figures from the past, but as living friends. Now, in telling my stories of mystery and murder, I have employed the art of witty conversation, as I imagine my main characters would have demanded of me, had I been asked to lunch. The action is set against the exciting background of the times in which they lived – the greatest period in American Theatre and literature, when New York City had twelve daily newspapers, Prohibition was a dirty word, and the Jazz Age unleashed a new kind of music and art. ”

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another super Dorothy Parker mystery by Agata Stanford! This is a fun mix of mystery, madcap amd slapstick. I laughed out loud in several places and the wild romp thru the University Club practically had me rolling on the floor. The entire scene was right out of the zany comedies of the 30's. The mystery was twisty, surprising and satisfying. My only criticism is sometimes Ms. Stanford gets a bit too preachy for my liking. Overlook this minor flaw and you have a great story. I'm looking forward to the next entry in the series, Mystic Mahjong

[Michael Mayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

My first Agata Stanford Dorothy Parker Murder Mystery book, and it was a wonderfully accurate portrayal of the incomparably witty Dorothy Parker and Robert Benchley and the rest of the Algonquin Round Table crowd, particularly Alexander Woollcott, the penultimate sophisticated theater critic. Full of her carefully researched and lovingly detailed account of life in New York City in the 1920's.

[Joy H.]

3/29/11 - This review has a private note.

See the following web site for information about the book and the author:
http://dorothyparkermysteries.com/jou...

[Helen · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF...Dorothy Parker was an adroit writer. One should never try to write dialogue for a character that was the master of one-liners, unless they are equally adroit. This “author” is not.