Lady to kill

by Lester Dent

To get to the bottom of a business deal gone bad, Chance Molloy seeks answers from a young woman on a train—but gets more than he expected

Julie Edwards, a small-town physician’s assistant, is headed to New York to visit her old friend Martha and make a new life for herself. On the train, she meets Chance Molloy, an intrepid, self-made airline owner who also knows Martha—or thinks he does. When Molloy shows Julie a picture of their mutual friend, she claims he’s got the wrong girl. As Julie walks back to her car, an assassin knocks her unconscious. She’s saved in the nick of time from being thrown off the train.

While the train hurtles forward, Molloy must unlock an elaborate corporate conspiracy surrounding the imposter Martha, while safeguarding Julie and staying two steps ahead of the killers traveling with them.

Genres: Thriller

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Lester Dent (1904–1959) was born in La Plata, Missouri. In his mid-twenties, he began publishing pulp fiction stories, and moved to New York City, where he developed the successful Doc Savage Magazine with Henry Ralston, head of Street and Smith, a leading pulp publisher. The magazine ran from 1933 until 1949 and included 181 novel-length stories, of which Dent wrote the vast majority under the house name Kenneth Robeson. He also published mystery novels in a variety of genres, including the Chance Molloy series about a self-made airline owner. Dent’s own life was quite adventurous; he prospected for gold in the Southwest, lived aboard a schooner for a few years, hunted treasure in the Caribbean, launched an aerial photography company, and was a member of the Explorer’s Club.

Reviews

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

An oddity of a book.

Written by the man who created Doc Savage, and wrote the majority of the novels, kept writing after the series was cancelled.

This seems like the plot of a Doc Savage novel with all of the science fiction elements stripped out. The protagonist could be Doc. He's got a couple of sidekicks. There's a mystery that seems to start small, but soon becomes a real mess. Nobody knows what's going on throughout the book. There's even an evil mastermind.

It's written and set after WWII, and there's a putative romance element that seems like something out of the 19 century. Entertaining, but a bit odd.

[Pamela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dated and predictable but with a few twists. Not a bad read.

[K. Counihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written Hardboiled Clean

Clean, old-school hardboiled mystery. Quick, fast-paced read. Will read more from this author. Nice twist ending, did not see coming.

[Geicodave · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good mystery

This is a good, tightly-written mystery. That is not surprising given that Dent wrote a lot for "the pulps" of the 30s and 40s.