The Norths Meet Murder

Mr. & Mrs. North #1

by Frances Lockridge, Richard Lockridge

An alternate cover edition of this ISBN can be found here.

First in a long and extremely popular series, the main sleuth is actually Lt. Weigand of the NYC police. This is a cozy police procedural, with some nice bits of The Norths -- who find the body -- even though most people only remember them. In this first novel they do only a little sleuthing, and the focus is on police procedure.

from the back cover of The Thorndike Edition:
"THE NORTHS MEET MURDER in the top-floor studio of the old house in which they live. Long left vacant, Mrs. North decides it is just the place for a party and takes her husband up to check it out. They open a door -- and find a murdered man in the bathtub! With no clue, not even the identity of the corpse, nothing to start from but the Norths and their black cat Pete, Detective Weigand begins spinning his web and gathering into it the most amazing conglomeration of information. With the aid of Mrs. North's "hunches" he carries through to a brilliant, entertaining and fascinating conclusion."

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Cozy Mystery, Crime, Cozy, New York, Classics

Paperback

First published January 1, 1936

About the author

Frances Louise (Davis) Lockridge wrote popular mysteries and children's books with husband Richard Lockridge. They also published under the shared pseudonym Francis Richards.

Reviews

[Charles van Buren · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fun begins

In this first volume of the Mr. and Mrs. North series the Norths find their first body and meet Police Lt. Weigand. Mrs. North is not quite as zany as the character played by Gracie Allen but she frequently confuses her husband, the Lt. and others, adding a lot of humor to the mystery story. Zany or not she gets answers even if the way she gets there is sometimes hard to understand.

[Zain · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Introduction To The Busybodies!

Mr. and Mrs. North are having a party.

They love to have parties because they love to drink cocktails! All their friends also love cocktails, so they decide to get the two together.

They plan to have their cocktail party in their empty apartment located above their own rooms, but find a big surprise waiting for them. A dead man is in the bathtub! A naked dead man!

Enter the two detectives. Lieutenant Weigand and his associate, Detective Mullins are on the case. But somehow the Norths think that they are the ones called to solve the crime.

And what a wonderful mystery! Lots of false herrings. Lots of one-way clues. Lots of confusion. But the mystery is solved and alls well that ends well.

A happy five stars ✨

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

The characters Pam & Jerry North were originally invented by Richard Lockridge for some vignettes he wrote for the New York Sun during the early thirties and which he later resurrected in the short domestic comedies he contributed to The New Yorker, by which time the Norths had acquired their full names but not yet their abilities as amateur detectives. A collection of the stories was published in 1936 as Mr. and Mrs. North. The crime novels originated when Frances Lockwood started writing a mystery during one summer vacation. Stuck on a plot complication she called on her husband for help and the writing team was launched. Because the Norths already had some name recognition, the Lockridges decided to use Pam and Jerry as their central characters and retain the humorous tone and the playful interaction between the couple from the earlier stories. The first Mr. and Mrs. North mystery, The Norths Meet Murder, was published in 1940. by Charles L. P. Silet

The Norths Meet Murder opens as Jerry comes home from his office at a publishing house and finds Pam planning a party in the vacant apartment on the top floor of their appartement building. The empty flat can provide the space to dance and to set up a bar that their second floor flat lacks. Since their landlady, Mrs. Bruno, is having trouble renting out the place, she has left the door unlocked in order to allow prospective renters to look in without her. So when Pam and Jerry arrive at the topflat to have a look at Mrs Norths plan, they discover the corpse of a man with his head bashed in lying naked in the bath tub in the bathroom.
This discovery changes the plans for a party rather immediately.The police officers who are called in to investigate are Bill Weigand and his assistant, Detective Sergeant Aloysius Clarence Mullins. The inspector Wiegand does do the most sleuthing in this 1st novel of the series, while Mullins does most of the legwork. We get to know the cast of possible suspects through the interviews by Wiegand and through those talks and reports by Mullins we get enough insight in the various character interactions to establish some idea of the guilty party.
The narrative of the plot is carefully detailed in chapters with specific time limits--"8:00 A.M. to noon"--over the five days of the investigation.

This mysterybook is a period mystery, set in the late 1930s (and written in 1940), the culture of this time with the smoking and drinking shows it origin from older times. The very cavalier attitude by the police with their acceptance of beating a admission of guilt out of a suspect along with the casual drinking on the job by the police sets a mood of more innocent times. Where the CSI is still in his infant shoes, what makes the mystery probably a nicer read. And the murderer still a smart figure that could get away with stuff that is currently impossible.

I am a big fan of Nora & Nick Charles, mostly due to their outragious movies characters, and how they casually solve mystery and crime without having them stop their drinking.
Pam & Jerry North are not as suave and drunk, but they do like their cocktails. And so does inspector Wiegand. In this 1st outing it is Wiegand who does the most sleuthing and enjoying the company of the Norths. Mrs North being the smarter and more evolved character than her husband comes to the solution with the same knowledge as Wiegand by accident.
A nice period mystery for people who enjoy the mysteries from before the big crimelabs and in a more innocent and romantisized setting.

Well worth my time and I will probably seek out a later novel to see where the Norths evolved to. This one would be a 3 1/2 star for me.

[Ivonne Rovira · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nearly 80 years after The Norths Meet Murder was first published in 1940, this debut novel to a series introducing Jerry and Pamela North — a more fun version of Nick and Nora Charles — still delights. When the couple discover a murdered man in the apartment above theirs, they obviously become drawn into the investigation, headed by the sympathetic Lieutenant William Weigand.

I loved the mystery, which I never cracked, and I loved the glimpse into 1930s Greenwich Village and a sophisticated life I’ll never have. It’s also interesting to see that the “third degree” was pretty standard even in the mid-century. Highly recommended.

[Anissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading this, and I totally don't need one more new-to-me series to begin. It's dated in places (officers attitudes about suspects, racial minorities & pre-Miranda), but given that this was written back in the 1930s, I wasn't surprised. The Norths are delightful. Mrs. North is a more full character than her husband, but given that there are over 20 books, I'm sure there's time to get to know him. I liked the mystery for set-up, but it wasn't one a reader could work out as there is information about the motive that is obscured until the sum up. That's not my favourite way for a mystery to go, but this still worked very well. I was engaged, and when I'd put it down, I thought about it until I could pick it up again.

I will continue with the series. Recommended.

[Bev · Rating 4 out of 5]

Current review [6/29/16]

Nobody is going to that much trouble to get murdered. But if you're going to murder somebody, you expect to go to a lot of trouble. I would. [Pam North]

The Norths Meet Murder (1940) is a lovely beginning to Frances & Richard Lockridge's series which features (to varying degrees) Pam and Jerry North as the slightly "screwy," yet classy amateur sleuth husband and wife team and the sharp Lieutenant (later Captain) Bill Weigand and his faithful, often confused sidekick Detective Aloysius Mullins. This first outing is a bit more police procedural than later installments and we spend a great deal of time following Weigand and Mullins around as they hunt down clues and interview suspects. Pam and Jerry appear at the beginning and end...as well as popping up now and again throughout, but this is really Weigand's book.

The story opens with Jerry returning home from work in a rather grumpy mood to find that Pam has decided that they need to throw a party. And the empty apartment on the top floor of their building will be the perfect location "because there was so much room and she had just thought of it." She had already gone up earlier that day and checked out the space (just to be sure) and had cleared the idea with their landlady, Mrs. Buano. All she needs now is for Jerry to tell her what a fine idea it is and to go upstairs with her so she explain all the important details (like where they'll place the bar, for instance). Once he has downed enough cocktails, he is persuaded to go upstairs. But instead of visualizing the party arrangements and the expected guests, he and Pam find an unexpected guest already lounging in the bathtub. Naked. And very dead.

This brings the cops. Lots of cops

"Six cars, every which way," Mrs. North called, excitedly. "They don't pay any attention to one-way streets. Seven cars, and there's going to be a crowd."

It also brings Lieutenant Bill Weigand and Sergeant Mullins. It isn't long before the body is identified and it is discovered that the man moved within some of the same social circles as the Norths. Which gives them a bit of a motive--albeit tenuous. Weigand will sift the clues to find those that point to the true villain of the piece.

It was a great delight to read this once again. I first read it about twenty years ago or so--from the library. And have since gotten my very own copy. When the Mystery Reporter Challenge called for a book that involved a party, I decided it was time to revisit my friends, the Norths. The book is a lot of fun. The dialogue and the descriptions are breezy and delightful. Pam's apparent non sequiturs keep Jerry, Weigand, and Mullins on their toes. This time around, I was struck by how much I love Mullins and his distrust of screwy murders and even screwier witnesses. I was also struck by the racism in Mullins's treatment of a Japanese servant. I hadn't remembered that from the first reading. I'm convinced that it had a great deal to do with the fact that this book came out during World War II and I hope I'm remembering correctly that there is little of it in later books.

The police procedural nature of the book is decent--although the clues are not quite fair play. There is an interesting alibi involved and the wrap-up has a medium-sized dose of female in jeopardy when Pam realizes who the murderer must be and s/he realizes that Pam has had a "light bulb" moment. Overall, great fun and light entertainment at it's best. I originally gave this four stars. This time round, I'm giving it ★★★★ and a half--with a small deduction for the small amount of racism.

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

[Previous mini-review from my pre-blogging days]
I love the zany world of Mr. and Mrs. North. These light, mad-cap mysteries are just the thing when you want something satisfying that won't make you think too hard. (five stars on the previous review)

[Shoshana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A million years ago when I was a girl, I thought that the Mr and Mrs North mysteries were the height of sophistication. I read every one I could find, and I am delighted to see these marvelous stories available to a new audience for Kindle.

Although this book was published in 1940, it hardly shows its age. The gang's all here; Pam and Jerry North, of course, Lt Bill Weigand, Detective Mullins, and even Inspector O'Malley makes his appearance. The only ones missing are the Siamese cats whom I seem to remember as Gin, Martini and Sherry. (I could easily be wrong as long-term memory is fickle.) Everyone smokes, of course, and there is quite a lot of drinking, but mostly this mystery could be set in twenty-first century New York with only a few changes.

This first book in the series has somewhat less of the Norths and rather more of Bill Weigand than usual, but the plot doesn't suffer from it, rather it sets up the series for the following books quite nicely. We are able to see the procedures of the police, and the Norths do play a pivotal role.

It was a distinct pleasure to read, or actually reread this book, and I am looking forward to reading the others. Bravo to whomever it was who decided to bring back the Norths.

[Shelby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe objectively a 3 1/2 star book, but I had fun so I’m rounding up.

Full disclosure, I only read this book because Multnomah county library accidentally put it (well, actually a later one in the series) on their list of Lambda award finalists. While I did realize it was written in 1940 and therefore not a legitimate finalist, I thought I’d have a go anyway. Overall, it proved a light, fun, golden age mystery. Not particularly revolutionary, but a great comfort read, if murder mysteries are what you turn to in anxious times like these. And the main trio had a delightful Singin’ in the Rain vibe, if you know what I mean. (Yeah, that’s the euphemism we’re going with from now on.)

(Heads up for some period-typical racism with regards to the Japanese suspect, although the worst of it doesn’t really go anywhere.)

[Bev · Rating 5 out of 5]

see review on other edition

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have been randomly reading Lockridge's series for the past year and finally stumbled on Book #1 in the series. For any reader interested in this series of gentle and slightly comic "classic murder mysteries" I recommend reading them in order. I didn't do that---but highly recommend that you do what I didn't do.

The character development is far more interesting if the books are experienced in sequence. In this novel, Mr. & Mrs. North literally stumble upon a body -- the fun begins when they start sharing cocktails with the investigating officer. Cocktails are a critical component of the Mr. & Mrs. North stories and even the accomplished police officer in charge of the case doesn't have a problem tipping a few martinis during lunch. (I have to keep reminding myself that martini glasses were much, much smaller in the 30's and 40's ! But, a three martini lunch while on duty ! )

This series is filled with period details which I love---each story takes you on a restaurant and bar tour of Greenwich Village or mid-town Manhattan--and, Lockridge has a knack for creating an air of stylish living without over-doing it. The "police procedural" parts of his books bore me a bit, but the fun of spending a few hours in the North's world is what lures me to return to another one of his books.

P.S. DVD's are available of the televised Mr. & Mrs. North mysteries from the 1950's----they are not nearly as much fun as the books, but they may be of interest to fans of classic tv programs.

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whose Body? meets The Thin Man in this cocktail-soaked mystery of the body in the bath of an uninhabited apartment. Sadly, the Norths do no real sleuthing, all of which is left to the police--which is normal, I realise, but I had hoped for them to be more involved. The author catches Pam North's habit of skipping from one thought to another with nothing to connect them, making the text hard to understand in spots--I had to keep going back and re-reading, particularly conversations. Unfortunately, Jerry North is just a background scribble.

I had thought this was a modern "period cosy", until I realised it was published in 1940. I think it's meant to be set in the 1930s, like its spiritual ancestor, but it's definitely more police procedural and less supersleuth. I guess I just can't forgive the Lockridges for not being Dashiell Hammet, or at least Raymond Chandler, who were better at creating atmosphere through details of dress, weather, cars etc. This book is mostly conversation and a character's thought processes.
A reasonably good read. Three and a half stars.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author had great insight into the human mind (particularly as she's describing all the trials and tribulations a hostess goes through to get her informal party just right) but the mystery was a little contrived and none of the characters had much depth. I might pick up another in the series but it won't be for awhile.

[Wendi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cozy combined with procedural and a twist of lemon

First in the North mysteries written by husband and wife team. These are comfortable mysteries with lots of cats, martinis, and occasional light social commentary of midcentury Manhattan liberals. Only one cat in this first story. The tribe grows.
I like them when my mind desires an easy chair.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a real slog. I had a hard time finishing it. The probable only way I will continue this series is if I have already bought them, and I feel I have to.

[Doug Bolden · Rating 4 out of 5]

As seems true of some novels that introduce amateur sleuths (or, in this case, convert existing, more comical characters into amateur sleuths), the sleuths-to-be are essentially secondary characters to a traditional detective plot. In this case, we have a Lt. Weigand and his aggrieved Mullins as a pair of police inspectors who dig down and do a lot of footwork trying to solve a crime of a decidedly unlocked room variety. A body is found in an empty apartment that is always left unlocked for potential buyers. The couple who found it, the eponymous Norths, and members of their extended social circle, are suspect for a variety of reasons: mostly involving money and lust and various social (not so) slights. The man killed was generally unpleasant, prone to affairs and to rubbing people the wrong way, though not an awfully terrible sort while the people who are suspected have a number of flimsy alibis and secret meetings and financial blips. The Norths are known by the readers to be not the killers, which is fine enough because the police seem barely to suspect them - part of me did wonder what sort of plot twist would allow for them to been behind it all along, and how this would impact the rest of the series - but everyone else on the list seems both likely and unlikely murderers as well.

This makes up the bulk of the novel, where nothing seems set in stone and the unpeeling of the layers just leads to more possible links and less definite conclusion. Until it does conclude: not with a stirring confession by the killer but a combination of flimsy and definite evidence. And, true to form, most of the clues were there the whole time though never so much as to completely spoil it. No doubt some readers "knew" the killer, but they just as well could have been wrong, or right for the wrong reasons (the real motive is only explained in the final few pages). All in all an ok mystery, a bit light on the depth and full of the kind of characters (the other suspects) that only slightly intrigue: passionate in their own world, but mostly for the things that I would just as well leave alone. A second murder seems a bit extraneous, but helps to drive the plot, though it just as well could have been left alone.

Where the book shines is in its snapshot view of a time. This is pre-war (World War II) New York, with all its racism and (albeit mildly stated, here) classicism and genteel sexism and anti-Hitler propaganda being viewed not so much as a pro-American-goodness as a business impediment for perhaps a good cause. A Japanese butler is described as being of an alien mind (and given a pidgin accent) and there's a tiny scene, passed off a bit comically, of an inspector eyeing a young African-American with suspicion (and being eyed with suspicion in turn) just because the young man is a person-of-color on the street of New York. While one is forced to accept the attitudes of the time, the telling here occasionally feels almost judgmental, like the Lockridges are chiding New York for its many stripes and the way its many stripes view the other ones, but not completely. It feels honest, at any rate, for the good and the bad. The distrust of the police by the non-white folks seems prescient, under-the-radar commentary that might not have been meant as such.

Likewise, we get a glance in the living conditions of the upper middle crust (or maybe the lower upper crust) and the set up of shops and apartments and streets and subways. It is almost anthropologically in its joy of making the time period vibrant. When the police discuss various unsavory methods of getting evidence out of suspects, we too get a glance of the methods of the time to investigate crime, and not all of them heroic. The methods of investigation seem thorough, and well described. As far as I know, it is an accurate (and again, feels honest) portrayal of the techniques and their occasional failings.

Weigand is primarily the star of this one, and does honorably as a main character soon to be shunted slightly aside for the Norths (I presume) in the follow-up titles. He is generally effective, both as an inspector and as a character, as he mulls over the crime and its effects. He is perhaps a bit too prone to latch to the female suspects, though as in most things in this book, it feels a bit honest. As he contemplates not only the solving of the crime, and its impact, he questions the outcome of his solving it: one of these people will go to jail or the electric chair. This feeling of the weight not only of putting a killer behind bars but the aftermath of doing so adds some gravity to the situation. I enjoyed the way he pulled things apart, albeit somewhat slowly and sometimes backed by luck, and enjoyed the way he was used as a bit of a commentary on the genre itself. The book does do this, and occasionally well, with some lampshade hanging about the way crime novels work versus real life. It was often pleasant to read these asides.

I am down to continue this series, even if the shift to the Norths will undoubtedly change some of the focus.

[Chrisanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was lots of wading, through uninteresting details, dry characters, mental processes, and alcohol.

So.
Much.
Alcohol.

Which I get it, it's something people do. But wasn't there anything else to do in 1940s NYC after you came home from work? It's 1940s NYC!!! But then I'm in the middle of COVID and getting out and going anywhere is fun for me.

A neighbor mentioned the now on YouTube TV show and I thought the book might be better. It comes off as a Thin Man knock-off, or vice versa, but The Thin Man is a bit wittier. I wouldn't mind reading a sequel if it got better and the slang/nicknames/culture and class profiling were less... I don't know?... awful?

However, my vintage edition had adorable ads inserted in the pages for tiny little local stores like "Diamond Market," "Price Floral Shop," and "Carbon Ice Cream Co. Phone 313" It was sooooo fun to look though the pages.

[Andree · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounding up. It took me a bit to get into it (get into the flow of the writing, I mean, which is a bit stylized). And it's not quite what I expected in that the Norths aren't the detectives (even amateur ones), unlike other cozy type mysteries. They discover a body and provide information over the course of the investigation. Just a different format is all. I did find it a relatively good period mystery, and I like a period mystery. Unlike a lot of what I read, this was set in the U.S.

Also, I like Mrs. North, the Detective and Sgt Mullins, but Mr. North feels a bit underdeveloped at this point. Still, I may read the next one anyway. Because in the end, this was fun.

[Nina · Rating 2 out of 5]

The novel was published in 1940, so it has all the hallmarks of the era. Mr. North calls his wife “kid”, the cops call women “dames,” everyone smokes like chimneys, and in the evenings they drink Bacardi’s, martinis, and cocktails. The cops even drink and fraternize with the Norths, despite them being suspects themselves. I was picturing the whole story in black and white in my mind. Mrs. North sounded just like Gracie Allen; and, in fact, when I looked up to see if this was made into a move, Gracie Allen starred in it in 1942. The Norths find a dead body in the empty upstairs apartment of their building. After the police identify several suspects, the Norths host a party and invite all the suspects as well as the police so the culprit can be drawn out and identified. Fairly ridiculous plot, but it was meant more for amusement than drama.

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

What fun! Very retro and Nick and Nora Charles, with lots of cocktails and a cute pet-Pete the cat rather than Asta the terrier. The charming couple begins their investigative relationship with Lieutenant Weigand in this book, and I understand they are featured more prominently in successive books. This one involved an unidentified body, cheating spouses and, of course, a cocktail party. This was written in 1940 so there is a certain amount of political incorrectness, which is unfortunate. However, I plan to try some of the 25 additional “cases” in this series.

[Rhonda]

DNF @ 18%

This book is very tell, not show. I’m not sure if the era it was depicting (1930s) was supposed to correlate to the writing style, but that was also jarring as it was, sentence within sentence, and thoughts being thunk, and very comma heavy (case in point) with a slight noir feel (but not done quite right). This was just not an immersive experience, as no character development was had and everyone was just bland, which didn’t make me want to finish and find out who dun it.

[Emilia Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is the first I read from this author and I loved Lockridge style. Authors at that time were not graphic and knew how to write; I simply can't stand modern books anymore! (I was lucky to get a 1940's--first--edition of this novel.!) I kept seeing Dana Andrews in the role of the detective. Perhaps because of his role in one of my favorite movies, Laura?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this one! I liked both Mr & Mrs North and the detective Weigand. I'll definitely continue with the series.

[Christine PNW · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most enjoyable reads in months. Thoroughly delightful.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can't chill the wine in the bathtub if there's a corpse there.

Richard Lockridge was already a published author when his wife Frances decided to write a mystery. The story goes that he gifted her a couple of characters named Pam and Jerry North, about whom he'd written some humorous stories in the New Yorker Magazine. Then he helped her write the book. It was so well received that they continued at the pace of about one book per year from 1940 until Frances Lockridge died in 1963. Richard Lockridge said that his wife's personality was so closely associated with Pam North that he couldn't continue the series without her help.

Lockridge wrote three other mystery series and books in other genres, but it was the stories of Pam and Jerry North that captured the public's imagination. Soon there were movies, radio plays, and a television series. The Norths are a witty, likable couple and the combination of their personalities and a good mystery is very attractive.

Jerry North works for a publishing company and Pam keeps house. We're never told how old they are, but they have lived in their present apartment for 7 years and Jerry's old enough to have a high-level job. Early 40's? They have a large apartment in an older building with one cat and no children. Both are friendly and love to entertain. Pam is intuitive, intelligent, and trusts her gut. Her brain works so rapidly that her mouth sometimes can't keep up. Jerry is quieter and more cautious, but has total confidence in his wife's hunches.

In the first of the series, the top floor apartment is vacant and Pam decides to give a party there where her friends will have plenty of room to dance. She drags her reluctant husband up to check out the empty apartment and finds a naked corpse in the bathtub. It's the first corpse they've ever found, but it won't be the last.

The murder investigation introduces them (and us) to Lieutenant Bill Weigand of the Homicide Bureau. They're impressed with his intelligence and good manners. He's impressed with Pam's talent for figuring things out and with Jerry's lethal martinis. A crime-solving team is born.

For New Yorkers, the Norths seem naive about the ways that dishonest people use apartment bells to gain illegal entrance to buildings. But it gives Lt. Weigand a chance to instruct them which is helpful for those who don't live in apartment buildings with a common entrance. He also defines D.O.A. and M. E. There were fewer crime dramas then and the general public didn't throw around cop jargon like we do today.

After that it's a matter of identifying the corpse (his cigar brand helps) and figuring out how his naked body got into that bathtub. And who lured him there and killed him. And why his wife seems is so jumpy when she has such a fine alibi. Turns out the dead guy was no saint himself and there are several people who were happy to attend his funeral. But which one caused it?

The North's inquisitive cat Pete is both a nuisance and a help in solving the crime. In the end, the question of guilt hinges on the routine of the North's friendly mail man, Timothy Barnes. When Barnes realizes he knows something that could be of value, he starts toward headquarters, but the killer eliminates him on the way. There's nothing more dangerous than a murderer who's desperate not to get caught. Pam North learns that the hard way.

I like this series. It's well-plotted and fun to read. Pam North is sufficiently scatty to be entertaining, but not so much that she's annoying. I've already read some of the later books and the series got better as it went along. If you like complicated mysteries with interesting characters in an urban setting, I think you'll enjoy these books as much as I do.

[Abbey · Rating 4 out of 5]

1940, #1 Pam&Jerry North, Lt Bill Weigand NYC PD
Upper-middle-class New York City urban sophisticates (1940s style) find a dead man in a bathtub in an empty NY apartment; classic cosy police procedural four stars.

Pam North is a nice, slightly fuzzy youngish urban Missus who, with her publisher husband, lives a good life in New York City, filled with parties, shopping, dining out, etc. When she decides to give a big party she wants to use the space available in her small apartment building, the empty top-floor studio, as the setting, and goes upstairs to check it out (the last tenants left several months ago). Alas, there's a dead man (naked) in the (dry) bathtub, and his head's been bashed in.

We meet many interesting sorts of characters, and all are quite vivid and interesting - the Sad Wife and her amour, the odd Inventor, the Guy with a Short Fuse and Wife (who was playing around with the deceased), The Aesthete, The inscrutable Japanese Servant, the Bluff'n'Hearty Policeman, and, last but not least, The Detective, Lt. Bill Weigand, NYC police. Although this famous series has, over the years, been promoted as "Mr & Mrs North", in many of the books the lead character is that of Weigand, as it is in this first-in-series - this is a traditional police procedural rather than an amateur sleuth story. We follow him as he sifts through clues and suspects, as he and his cohort Sargent Mullins try to make sense of it all, with and without Mrs. North's "help".

Pam and Jerry play only a smallish part in the story, not appearing except for the set-up at the beginning, several interludes with Weigand, and the finale, a Gather The Suspects party at their apartment, wherein Pam gets to be Female In Jeopardy as both she, and Weigand, come to the same (correct) conclusions from different points of reference. Much of the plot is predictable - especially the finale, but all of it is quite classy, beautifully written and superbly plotted, with very good pacing and a nice sense of fun. It's especially interesting in this first book watching Weigand trying to make sense of Pam's blatherings and his attempts to figure out whether she and Jerry are themselves the murderers.

Supposedly Frances Lockridge was responsible for the plots and after she'd worked them out she gave them to Richard and he wrote the actual stories; whichever way they worked in tandem, this first-in-series is an excellent beginning, and great fun.

BOTTOM LINE: convoluted, almost doesn't play fair with cluing - some clues are terribly obscure - but beautifully paced and plotted, worthy of "classic" tag rather than just old/vintage.

[Marley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Mr. and Mrs.North since I was about 7 years old when I watched the TV series with Richard Denning and Barbara Britton. Decades later a local low power TV station ran the show and I found a DVD collection as well. I was surprised at how we they stood up. As an older fan I was impressed with their chemistry, their sexy marriage (by 1950s TV standards especially) and that they were happy and childfree. The Norths clearly had a great time with each other. The scripts themselves were the "well-made play." packed a lot in in 30 minutes (including commercials) that tied up in the end but had plenty of suspense and action.

This book, the first full-length Mr & Mrs. North novel is the same. The plot is a real puzzle piece. I thought I knew the culprit, but had no idea why and didn't find out until the end. Just a feeling. The "slip of paper" theory is a bit far fetched but it works out. The suspects are engaging, each with their own motives, and the reader (at least I), didn't want any of them to be guilty. Of course a deus ex machina at the end woud have been stupid and insulting to the reader.

I like the pre-war NYC setting. I almost remember it.

Amazon has quite a few North novels, but they are a bit pricey for Kindle. (This one was free) but I'm starting the Dishonest Murderer now since it's only a couple dollars. I intend to read them all though.

[Christopher Rush · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everybody used to be racist, I guess. Well, most people probably still are, to some degree, but the casual nature of it in this first-half-of-the-20th-century books is rather perplexing. This book suffers as well from "first book syndrome." Though, I know, Mr. Lockridge did write a different Norths book years before, and he and his wife had the much-better idea of turning these otherwise humdrum 20th-century landed gentry-types into a more interesting detective sleuth pair. Unfortunately, the eponymous characters are not the main focus of this book. The real main character is the "sure, I'll drink a lot while I'm on duty" police lieutenant Wiegand, who sort of figures it out but not really in time to do much. It's a slow-paced story. There's a lot of "let me show you what real policework is like!" content, which probably meant more for the original audience in 1940 than it does for us today in the post CSI/NCSI/etc. world in which we have surfeited on "real policework." Perhaps the series gets better, but it starts off a bit slowly.

[C.P. Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book in an antique shop while vacationing in the 1,000 Islands. The room was full of dusty books that smelt of age but I wanted to buy something anyway so I grabbed this one. It had no blurb on the back cover, no picture on the cover, but yet intrique was all over the hardcover.

I truly enjoyed the story. The story took place in NYC in the 1940s and I felt like I was in that time era. Though, I know that the book was written then and there and its purpose wasn't to try to take me back there. I couldn't stop reading, by far one of the best books I've ever read!

[Dorothy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mr. and Mrs. North mysteries are not something that would necessarily appeal to me today, but back in the day - late '60s, early '70s - I loved those books and devoured them like peanuts!

[David Clayton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am a fan of both the radio and tv show, the book did not disappoint. A fun read for any fan of the North"s.