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Hollis Carpenter Mystery #1
Bayou City Secrets
Powell makes a promising debut with a fast-moving, entertaining mystery set in the 1930s and served up in the hardboiled style. When Hollis Carpenter, veteran crime reporter for the Houston Times , is pulled from her beat to cover a no-news society item, she resigns in disgust. Andrew Delacroix, the paper's owner, intervenes, inviting Hollis to dinner and asking her to reconsider the new assignment while showing a genuine interest in her current story concerning guns that have vanished from the police station's evidence room. Hollis returns from her evening with Delacroix and his beautiful wife, Lily, only to find that her apartment has been burgled. She decides to seek help from Joe Mahan, a friend and cop, but at his house she finds his corpse; Joe has been murdered. Then Hollis herself receives a death threat and is nearly gunned down in public with Lily, whom she meets for an evening out. Clearly, whatever the now unemployed reporter stirred up is dangerous and edging ever closer. Although Hollis is more a smart aleck than a wit and Lily remains undeveloped, Powell effectively makes their lesbian relationship integral to the mystery.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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June 18, 2020Hollis Carpenter is a tough-as-nail, no-nonsense-from-
men crime reporter for The Houston Times. Well, at least she is in the first page or two—she quits when her editor is pressured into assigning her to write a story about a glitzy centennial celebration. Hollis does crime—like investigating the theft of a number of weapons from a police warehouse. But as soon is she is unemployed, people start trying to kill her and her friends, so what gives?
Although this book is excellent all the way through, it is the humorous descriptions that stand out. The author is witty and knows how to use words to their full advantage. In describing Hollis’s editor, she says, “if Kelly ever did have an intelligent idea and expressed it verbally, there would be such a vacuum created that his face would be sucked to the back of his head.” She has dozens and dozens of these bon mots.
As you would expect in post-Prohibition America, this tale is replete with gangsters and tommy guns, prostitutes and crooked cops. But Hollis is more than a witty wisecracker. She is intelligent and well able to defend herself against all off the above. But she is not so brave when she meets—and falls in a big way for—her publisher’s wife, Lily Delacroix. And when Lily decides to reciprocate, all hell breaks loose.
This is another fairly early Naiad Press book, but it is very different from most of its sisters. Either Powell is a better, more creative, writer than the rest of the Naiad stable, or Katherine V. Forrest does a superb editing job. I would suspect both. I also suspect that this is the first—and one of the only—times that Forrest has had the opportunity to guide a manuscript through publication by a writer more skilled than herself. Good descriptions abound, like this one: The rain was like a poor cousin who had come to visit for a few days and had moved in to live forever.
Bayou City Secrets is a delight from start to finish. I may not have much of a sense of humor, but I laughed out loud at least half a dozen times reading it. Not only would I read the sequel to this novel, which is Powell’s last book of any kind, but I already have it and can’t wait to get started reading it. Will Lily be a good addition or a liability? Certainly Hollis needs a foil of some kind—she is too much of a loner—and she needs to get back to reporting. We’ll see what happens in the next exciting episode of The Hollis Carpenter Mysteries.
Note: I read the first Naiad Press printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
men crime reporter for The Houston Times. Well, at least she is in the first page or two—she quits when her editor is pressured into assigning her to write a story about a glitzy centennial celebration. Hollis does crime—like investigating the theft of a number of weapons from a police warehouse. But as soon is she is unemployed, people start trying to kill her and her friends, so what gives?
Although this book is excellent all the way through, it is the humorous descriptions that stand out. The author is witty and knows how to use words to their full advantage. In describing Hollis’s editor, she says, “if Kelly ever did have an intelligent idea and expressed it verbally, there would be such a vacuum created that his face would be sucked to the back of his head.” She has dozens and dozens of these bon mots.
As you would expect in post-Prohibition America, this tale is replete with gangsters and tommy guns, prostitutes and crooked cops. But Hollis is more than a witty wisecracker. She is intelligent and well able to defend herself against all off the above. But she is not so brave when she meets—and falls in a big way for—her publisher’s wife, Lily Delacroix. And when Lily decides to reciprocate, all hell breaks loose.
This is another fairly early Naiad Press book, but it is very different from most of its sisters. Either Powell is a better, more creative, writer than the rest of the Naiad stable, or Katherine V. Forrest does a superb editing job. I would suspect both. I also suspect that this is the first—and one of the only—times that Forrest has had the opportunity to guide a manuscript through publication by a writer more skilled than herself. Good descriptions abound, like this one: The rain was like a poor cousin who had come to visit for a few days and had moved in to live forever.
Bayou City Secrets is a delight from start to finish. I may not have much of a sense of humor, but I laughed out loud at least half a dozen times reading it. Not only would I read the sequel to this novel, which is Powell’s last book of any kind, but I already have it and can’t wait to get started reading it. Will Lily be a good addition or a liability? Certainly Hollis needs a foil of some kind—she is too much of a loner—and she needs to get back to reporting. We’ll see what happens in the next exciting episode of The Hollis Carpenter Mysteries.
Note: I read the first Naiad Press printing of this novel.
Another Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
July 20, 2012
Funny indie-press book set in Houston in the '40s and trying to be noir, but mostly just succeeds in being campy. The plot isn't bad though: the main character is a lesbian crime reporter who stumbles on a gun-theft story and is targeted. She falls for the newspaper-owner's wife....
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews