Dead Stop

Jefferson DiMarco #1

by Doris Miles Disney

Popular Library Crime Club Selection SP389 50cents c1946 3rd printing softcover/pb 158pp.

Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite interesting psychological analysis of characters and I especially enjoyed the rather twisty ending.

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the grand tradition of Dostoievski's Crime and Punishment, Disney's reverse mystery is a terrific descent into the dark world of the economic patriarchy with which we are all so familiar---where women get to be sexually-attractive and men get to have incomes, and when a pretty but poverty-stricken young woman of the 1940s wants something more than the legalized prostitution of her loveless marriage, she winds up facing a dilemma anyone unlucky enough to be born both female and poor could find herself facing. Madame Bovary, c'est la.

Disney takes some calculated risks with point-of-view, but the results are wonderful: a well-woven tapestry of believable three-dimensional characters struggling powerfully against the odds and fate and each other, in a hair-raisingly tense walk toward the solution of the crime. . .down a very, very dark road.

[Roybot · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun period crime novel that I knew going in was never going to live up to the cover (which, to be fair, is an amazing cover--the drowning man, the screaming woman pulling her robe together, the giant hammer. What could really live up to the promise of that much danger?). Dark Road tells the tale of a beautiful woman who married a much older man, only to quickly realize that such a marriage is miserable. When she runs into an old flame, she contrives to escape her loveless marriage (through murder, obviously).

This is a fast read, and takes some unexpected, although ultimately believable, turns. It does lag a bit after the crime, and some of the relationships strain even my very forgiving sense of credulity, but for fans of pulp crime, this is a solid pick.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...