Ding Dong Bell

Inspector McKee #27

by Helen Reilly

McKee investigates a very dead PI with a very much alive suspect from somewhere in his rolodex.

Genres: Mystery

210 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Helen Reilly was an American novelist. She was born Helen Kieran and grew up in New York City in a literary family. Her brother, James Kieran, also wrote a mystery, and two of her daughters, Ursula Curtiss and Mary McMullen, are mystery writers.

Reilly's early books were police procedurals based on her research into the New York Homicide squad. Her most popular character is Inspector Christopher McKee. Reilly also used the pseudonym Kieran Abbey.

Reviews

[dmayr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This feels like a rehash of Staircase 4 or some other plot from the few Reilly books I've read. We've got the woman with The Past which she is hiding from her fiance, which only makes her (predictably) the target of a blackmailer. There's the spiteful young girl, a family friend with secrets of her own, and the suspicious relatives of her soon-to-be husband. And to top it all off, not one but three blackmailers in the making, all of whom meet their untimely demise. What was frustrating was the way all these people refuse to tell anything with a semblance of truth to the police aside from the fact that the main character chooses to let her loyalty lie on others and not with her fiance by not confiding in him the secret and most disappointingly, I guessed who the culprit was halfway through the book.

[Vintagebooklvr · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though this is considered a McKee novel, he isn't the main character. Liz Bowen, ex-career woman and fiancee of a young widower is. The tone of the novel is almost gothic but takes place in New York City and the suburbs in the 1950s, 60s, or early 70s (whatever is your pleasure of the edition you are reading).

It is a bit dated but there are plenty of twists and suspicions to keep you reading.

[Skjam! · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my review of the Ace Double edition with Certain Sleep here: http://www.skjam.com/2022/01/23/book-...