False face: A suspense novel

by Vera Caspary

When popular young schoolteacher Nina Redfield reports to police the whereabouts of Bushie Neal, a criminal on the run, she sets off a chain of events over which she has no control.

Nina is about to leave for a Hallowe'en party at a friend's house. An escort is sent to collect her, so it's no surprise to Nina when a masked man in a Harlequin costume calls for her. But Nina and her escort never reach the party . . .

Could her past association with Bushie's sworn enemy Nick Brazza have any connection to her disappearance? And has she been spirited to safety - or further into danger?

Genres: Crime

221 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1954

About the author

Vera Caspary, an acclaimed American writer of novels, plays, short stories and screenplays, was born in Chicago in 1899. Her writing talent shone from a young age and, following the death of her father, her work became the primary source of income for Caspary and her mother. A young woman when the Great Depression hit America, Caspary soon developed a keen interest in Socialist causes, and joined the Communist Party under a pseudonym. Although she soon left the party after becoming disillusioned, Caspary's leftist leanings would later come back to haunt her when she was greylisted from Hollywood in the 1950s for Communist sympathies. Caspary spent this period of self-described 'purgatory' alternately in Europe and America with her husband, Igee Goldsmith, in order to find work. After Igee's death in 1964, Caspary returned permanently to New York, where she wrote a further eight titles. Vera Caspary died in 1987 and is survived by a literary legacy of strong independent female characters.

Reviews

[Kansas · Rating 5 out of 5]

El personaje de Nina, la maestra protagonista de esta novela, no siempre cae bien pero eso la hace más humana, creo, porque no es un estereotipo de la época, plana, sino que este personaje es una mujer con sus defectos, con sus virtudes y a través de esta trama totalmente noir, se va conociendo a si misma.

" Nina pasaba por un periodo critico de autoanálisis. Tenía plena conciencia de si misma, tal como ocurre en un sueño, en el que el conocimiento de la propia existencia se agudiza y vibra sobre la monotonia de la rutina y los quehaceres domésticos. No deseaba llevar una vida estática e incorpórea ..".

Estamos acostumbrados en la novela negra de la época a que las mujeres pertenecieran o a las femmes fatale/bad girls, o al bando de las buenas chicas, las que no han roto nunca un plato. En "El Falso Rostro, Vera Caspary nos presenta a la maestra Nina, aparentemente una buena chica, con un gran sentido de la justicia, independiente y que vive sola, y sin embargo este personaje tiene también una infinita gama de matices, es imprevisible e injusta en ciertas actitudes: toda la novela es la evolución personal de Nina Redfield por aprender a conocerse a si misma y superar un determinado momento de su adolescencia.

"Te resultaba más placentero eso de añorar el amor perdido para prolongar indefinidamente la adolescencia. ¿Cuantas mujeres adultas y tenaces en otros aspectos de su personalidad, se aferran a un concepto anticuado del amor, propio de una adolescente??
(...)
Todo porque había tenido miedo de crecer, de aceptar el implacable mundo de los adultos, de renunciar a los juegos y pretensiones de la infancia".