Maggie Sullivan was a rarity: a self-confident, female private investigator in the early 1940s. In her mid-20s, she lived in a rooming house and operated her own one-person business in Dayton, Ohio. She was bright, competent, sassy, and knew how to get into locked doors. Sometimes, she was pretty good at defending herself.
In maximum Moxie, Loren Collingswood, co-owner of a company that developed technology, came to her to try to locate one of their employees. They were days away from a major meeting about one of their discoveries. Gil Tremain, the engineer who developed it and had the necessary information to complete the project, hadn't shown up for work for couple days.
While Collingswood was speaking to her, Maggie spotted unusual motion from one of his jacket pockets. It was a snake which she promptly shot. Luckily Collingswood had his medication with him so he did not have a heart attack.
Neither Collingswood’s partner, Frank Scott, nor anyone else, seem to know where Tremain was. They didn't know if he had taken the information to sell to someone else but when she went to Tremain's apartment and discovered it had been ransacked, she suspected he had not disappeared willingly. As she left the building, she learned that a woman had just been killed on the first floor.
Later on she was followed and attacked, making her more certain that Tremain had not left willingly. Finding him became more important and figuring out the motive was a primary motivator.
Maggie suspected that Collingswood and Scott were withholding information.
Included in the mix of characters are Collingwood's daughter, who had been dating Tremain, much to her father's chagrin, Walter Benning, proprietor of the lamp shop near where Tremain had last been seen, whose shop suddenly closed (The new for rent sign in the window gave no way to contact a rental agent.),Tabby Warren, a previous owner of the building when it was a speakeasy, and some Police Department friends.
While she was solving the case, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Everyone realized that life was going to be very different as young men left their jobs to go into the military.
There are a couple inconsistencies and repetitions the story particularly as she kept reviewing the case. The book starts by saying it was three days into December 1941. A few pages later she refers to a weak November light in its way through an outside window.
M. Ruth Myers provides enough information to visualize the scenes without overdoing it. Ofttimes, the descriptions are biting. When describing the Collingwood's office and the receptionist she states, “A potted plant brightened one corner of her desk. Either she did terrified it into being lush and green or she watered it.”
She presents insight into employee relations:
“Women in offices talked about things they didn't pass on to bosses. One got a glimpse of a letter about someone being promoted, or fired, or the target of legal proceedings. That girl passed the information to others. Word spread.
“Some might call gossip. A more accurate term was survival. Women were the disposables, the last to be told officially when jobs or salaries might be cut. They depended on each other for that, and for hearing when one of the men who call the shots was better avoided because he was in a nasty mood.”
I have read all the Maggie Sullivan mysteries and have enjoyed reading about this feisty young woman. Her characters seem genuine and the situations might be plausible.
My main criticism of the book for which I reduced my rating was the use of unnecessarily short chapters. Too often a new chapter would continue immediately the same time and place the previous chapter. I would hope readers have longer attention span.