The Bamboo Blonde

Griselda Satterlee #2

by Dorothy B. Hughes

On their second honeymoon, a woman’s husband is arrested for murder
Griselda Satterlee is beginning to regret her second marriage to Con. Their  honeymoon was supposed to be joyous, romantic, and full of glamor—all of the things their first marriage wasn’t—but instead they are spending it on Long Beach, a Navy town whose fleets have all shipped out to sea. The tedium of Long Beach cannot compare to the insult Con gives Griselda one night, when he picks up a stunning blonde at a bar, leaving his wife in the dust. When he returns to their hotel, Con explains to Griselda that the woman was planning to shoot herself, so he took her out of the bar to confiscate her gun. Griselda is just beginning to believe him when the blonde turns up dead, and Con is arrested for her murder. Griselda will have to work quickly to salvage their honeymoon, or Con will be forced to trade their bridal suite for death row.

Genres: Mystery, Ebooks

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1941

About the author

Dorothy B. Hughes (1904–1993) was a mystery author and literary critic. Born in Kansas City, she studied at Columbia University, and won an award from the Yale Series of Younger Poets for her first book, the poetry collection Dark Certainty (1931). After writing several unsuccessful manuscripts, she published The So Blue Marble in 1940. A New York–based mystery, it won praise for its hardboiled prose, which was due, in part, to Hughes’s editor, who demanded she cut 25,000 words from the book.

Hughes published thirteen more novels, the best known of which are In a Lonely Place (1947) and Ride the Pink Horse (1946). Both were made into successful films. In the early fifties, Hughes largely stopped writing fiction, preferring to focus on criticism, for which she would go on to win an Edgar Award. In 1978, the Mystery Writers of America presented Hughes with the Grand Master Award for literary achievement.

Reviews

[Bill Kerwin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second Dorothy Hughes mystery I’ve read lately, and, even though I didn’t like either of them all that much, I’m sure I’ll read more of her soon. Why? Well, I remember two of her later books as stellar (Ride the Pink Horse, In a Lonely Place) and I find that even these early novels are haunted by the allure of twisted relationships and the sense that loneliness and betrayal lurk just beyond every light. Hmm. Maybe that’s the reason some critics call her “The Queen of Noir.”

Hollywood costume-designer Griselda was looking forward to a second honeymoon with her newly remarried husband the radio newsman Con Satterlee, but not only has he chosen a real dump of a Longbeach cottage for their bridal tryst, but soon he is ignoring her (just as before!) and (worse!) paying attention to other women. It was bad enough when, outside The Bamboo Bar, he flirted with navy wife Kathy, but inside the Bamboo he left Griselda for a blonde at the bar and both disappeared soon after. Of course Griselda is hurt and angry, but she doesn’t know quite what to think: after all, Con is secretive about his investigative journalism, and she also suspects he may be working for “X Division” (American Intelligence) again. But when the Bamboo blonde winds up dead, Griselda’s questions—and anxieties—grow.

Sounds interesting? Well, it isn’t. Griselda is much too “patient” (hence her name) and Con much too “contrary” to be likable, and the plot—filled with a host of suspicious characters—is not complicated so much as it is murky and filled with red herrings. I wished it to be over long before I had finished it, and I was relieved when it was done.

And yet...there are scenes here—when the Griselda sits alone in her cottage afraid of what may be out there in the night, watching her, coming for her—that are haunting and effective. And there is something about the sick relationship of the two principal characters that lingers in the memory too.

So, okay then, I’m hooked on Hughes. Next month: The Fallen Sparrow.

[Bev · Rating 2 out of 5]

...he was never afraid, not even when he should be. That was why he got involved in things; not scrapes that you could laugh at later, but serious trouble where death whispered, and which you tried never to remember after. (p. 17)

If I hadn't been determined that Dorothy B. Hughes's The Bamboo Blonde was going to be my last read of 2013 (and the last book needed for my final challenge of 2013), I would have given up on it. It is a fairly unsatisfying, semi-hard-boiled mystery involving fifth columnists and self-centered murderers. The whole story is told from the viewpoint of Griselda Satterlee who has just remarried her beloved Con. She's been promised a proper second honeymoon--joyous and romantic. What she gets is a visit to the Navy town of Long Beach and the fist thing Con does is pick up a drunken blonde at the Bamboo bar (thus the title). The blonde winds up dead. Con winds up suspect number one. There are several more deaths, a mysterious major, ties to the navy, secrets about radio transmissions, and a great deal of rather boring descriptions to go along with it. And I don't care for the way Con treats his wife. Yes, the book was written in the '40s. But we've got Dare Crandall portrayed as an intelligent, strong woman...why in the world does Griselda have to be portrayed as such a ditzy blonde with thoughts like "Con would die never knowing that her love for him was great enough to permit without question ever again his vagaries. He would never know that Dare's doorkey wasn't important if she herself might only have a small share of him." Please. Spare me. And the mystery behind all this isn't enough to make up for Con's ditzy wife who just wants "a small share of him." It didn't take long at all to spot the murderer.

The best I can say of the book is...it allowed me to Outdo Myself and...more importantly it allowed me to finish the last category for my Vintage Mystery Challenge--Blondes in Danger. Yep. I finished all 37. Now to get ready for Vintage Mystery Bingo in 2014! Two stars.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting. Thanks.

[Mohammed Abdikhader Firdhiye · Rating 2 out of 5]

I liked this book more than two stars but the mystery,the story itself wasn't real convincing in the end. I enjoyed more the way Hughes wrote the characters, specially the female lead whose POV you read the story from. She wasnt a femme fatale or a damsel in distress type. She was a refreshing contrast to those type of women in this kind of crime and the usual macho detective lead.

Will be interesting to read her later, more acclaimed books.

[Josie Boyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid quirky pulp novel that has a bit of hollywood noir, espionage, and really strong female characters, who shouldn't be mistaken for typical femme fatales. On FB i called this book - proto Highsmith... I stand by that, not so literary as Highsmith perhaps, but just as grey in its portrayal of heroes and villains.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Con and Griselda are on their second honeymoon--well, they've married each other twice--but she's still suspicious of his drinking, his interest in other women (especially when her long-time rival Dare turns up in Long Beach, where they're staying against her will), and most of all his relationship with U.S. Intelligence in the fraught days just before Pearl Harbor. On his part, Con thinks that keeping Griselda in the dark about his activities will protect her, even after he's arrested for murder.

[Jim Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I've read and enjoyed several Hughes novels (Ride the Pink Horse, The So Blue Marble and In a Lonely Place) but I just couldn't get into this one and gave up at about the 20% mark.

[tortoise dreams · Rating 3 out of 5]

While on her honeymoon, a recently remarried (to her first husband) Hollywood costume designer gets mixed up with spies.

Mystery Review: The Bamboo Blonde is one of the many books that would be twice as good if it were half as long. A sort of sequel to The So Blue Marble, but where that was good, old fashioned entertainment, this was too slow and quiet to be anything better than average. Too much detail, conversation, and fretful ruminating drains tension and suspense from a novel that counts on such qualities. Each periodic murder somehow seems anti-climactic instead of astonishing. A lengthy expository (and patriotic) wrap-up doesn't help. Dorothy B. Hughes (1904-93) has retained the hard-boiled gestalt and the "always braver than she thinks she is" lead character, but a spy story should keep the reader on the edge of her seat, not plodding along mildly amused. I enjoyed the return of our protagonist, Griselda Satterlee. All her efforts to begin her honeymoon are for nothing: "It isn't fair that the delusions of grandeur of one small Austrian should have spoiled the whole world for us." I appreciate how Griselda plans her outfits like she's going into battle and her constant inner voice had its moments (especially the Saharan sense of humor: in Hollywood "A costume designer isn't much more important than a writer"). But The Bamboo Blonde isn't as good as its title. There's occasional historical interest here as the story is set in the year before Pearl Harbor and it's intriguing to see the attitudes of Americans not knowing that a world war was imminent. The East "no longer of cherry blossoms and delicate things, land of drawn sabers and crashing bombs." A minor note, apparently in 1941 the word "okay" hadn't yet achieved a standardized form, as it's spelled "oke" here. Even though The Bamboo Blonde seems to have slipped through a much-needed editing process unscathed, Hughes can write. In 1930 she won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize for a first book of poetry. This isn't the book that realized that promise, however. Unless you're a Hughes completist (like me), The Bamboo Blonde is one you can skip without developing a guilt complex. Not so bad, just not overly good. She has better that you can look for such as Ride the Pink Horse (1946) and In a Lonely Place (1947), both of which were made into films. [3★]

[David Evans · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s a note on the frontispiece of my 1942 Penguin edition of this 1941 book printed on wartime-quality thin paper which reads, “Leave this book at a Post Office when you have read it, so that men and women of the Services may enjoy it too”. I was half tempted to do this to see whether the Post Office would honour the offer but I’m not sure that inflicting this on the recipients would be fair.
In mitigation it’s an early effort by Dorothy Hughes and is a noir-ish hard-boiled thriller set in Long Beach, California. I got very confused as there is a lot of (to my mind) unnecessarily dialogue, not helped by my tendency to turn two pages at once because of the paper, that interferes with what is actually a simple plot. Griselda Satterlee and her husband, Con (silly name) have re-married, having sensibly divorced once, and are honeymooning by the sea but Griselda soon realises that Con has another reason to be in that particular location and it’s to do with missing secret documents, a missing friend called Mannie (!) and complicated by the shooting dead of the titular blonde who was last seen alive in the company of Con and a loaded gun. Griselda is upset and astonished that Con should behave like this (getting himself arrested on their second honeymoon!) and is even more annoyed at his lack of explanation about his association with another beautiful woman (called Dare for goodness sake), even though he was probably attracted by her equally silly name. There’s a sinister British officer (Britain was at war even though in 1941 American wasn’t), whose surname is oddly spelt Pembrooke, but by this stage I was only mildly irritated. Also involved is a journalist (first name Kew!), an American Naval Officer, unexceptionally called Travis and his wife, Kathie - see, it can be done.
All I can say is that I prefer Michael Connelly’s “The Concrete Blonde”, an altogether more solid tale.

[Ron Zack · Rating 2 out of 5]

Underwhelming

“The Bamboo Blond” is the first Dorothy Hughes novel I’ve read. She is often listed as a mid-20th-century noir fiction writer, but this novel does not have most of the noir elements. It is a strange mystery with a weird cast of characters engaging in often witty banter and unlikely relationships. There are jealous, competitive women, lots of gossip, and elements of international intrigue, espionage, romance, and deceit.

No one is quite what they seem and even their odd names are questionable. There is Con and Griselda Saterlee, Dare Crandall, Kew Brent, Major Pembrooke, and Captain Thusby, a cop with a peg leg. Other characters include Barjon Garth, the head of the X division, the highest governmental secret service, an agent named Alexander Smithery who is called Chang, and Rufus Treat.

I almost gave up when I passed the halfway mark and nothing of any substance was happening. It was more like a parlor game than a novel. But the pace picked up about two-thirds of the way through. Still, I was left unsatisfied and a bit frustrated.

[Carol Masciola · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sequel to The So Blue Marble. Once again we meet Griselda and Con Satterlee, she a glamorous Hollywood costume designer, he a radio report/secret agent. This time they are in Long Beach on the brink of WW2, ostensibly for a second honeymoon but actually on the trail of an evil spy who has possibly murdered a couple of people. Lots of twists, perhaps too much confusion along the way. I did get lost a little here and there. But a fun old book with a lot of glamor and intrigue.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

An atmospheric, vintage spy thriller; more adventures for Griselda Satterlee and her husband Con on their second "honeymoon" in a fun sequel to The So Blue Marble.

[Kit · Rating 3 out of 5]

a wife kept in the dark about the espionage and love plots in her circle strives to figure things out to help her spy husband on what was to be their second honeymoon. feels like a more nobly intended ancestor of the risible picture True Lies. Griselda in her ignorance and worry is a tiring figure to experience the whole story through.

[Marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as compelling as the previous Griselda Satterlee story. This one was yes, a murder mystery, but there were so many characters moving around so much that it was a little tough to follow. Written in 1941, there are lots of references to the war in Europe and intelligence-gathering, in terms not familiar in print these days.

[N.]

taking too long to reead this novel. I'm on new meds so my attention span is weird, but I can get really focused on things.

[Mare · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ms. Hughes certainly had a way with atmosphere. Very tense and twisting story.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the first Griselda Satterlee book, but it was a pretty good murder mystery with hints of espionage thriller and hard-boiled drama. A lot of the motivations and actions were hidden behind the scenes, leaving both Griselda and the reader to bumble around, wondering exactly what’s going on and who can be trusted. Wow, what a honeymoon.

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vintage Scattergories 2021 (Gold), #33.

[Glen U · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dorothy B. Hughes is one of the few women in the 40's to write mystery novels in the hard-boiled or noir genre. While this piece is more of a spy-thriller story, it is written in the same spirit as a detective novel. It is tightly written and suspenseful and will keep the reader interested until the end. I gave "The Bamboo Blonde" only two stars because in comparison to her true detective pieces, it falls short.

[Susan Molloy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I got this book as a freebie through Kindle Unlimited, but I could not get beyond the first couple of pages because it was very graphic and not my taste at all.

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🗑 Pas pour moi. Abandoned. Conversely, other readers may find this story their cup of tea and right up their alley.