Sing Me a Murder

by Helen Nielsen

A Novel. A meaty book, opulent with unpredictable pleasures.

Genres: Pulp, Noir, Mystery

176 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

Helen Nielsen was author of mysteries and television scripts for such television dramas as "Perry Mason" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".
She studied journalism, art and aeronautical drafting at various schools, including the Chicago Art Institute. Before her writing career, she worked as a draftsman during World War II and contributed to the designs of B-36 and P-80 aircraft. Her stories were often set in Laguna Beach and Oceanside, California where she lived for 60 years.
Some of her novels were reprinted by Black Lizard, including "Detour" and "Sing Me a Murder".

Reviews

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mystery, melodrama, a touch of noir and a touch of gothic romance. Helen Nielsen's name pops up frequently in the old Alfred Hitchcock anthologies and I've read a handful of her stories. I've had her two Black Lizard reprints for a thousand years (okay, not quite that long) and have yet to read one of them until now. Mystery writer Marcia Muller's introduction to Sing Me a Murder states that Nielsen does not write noir. I suppose that's correct by Muller's definition of "noir" at the time, but I think there are enough of the elements fans of noir expect to give this one a nod. You have a husband tortured by the death of his beautiful jazz singing wife. He plays her records and hears her voice speaking to him from the dead. You have the murder of a pretty young waitress who happens to look like the dead singer. You have a man wrongly accused of the crime. You have a cast of duplicitous characters with hidden agendas. Another murder happens in the dark. And a protagonist whose chase for the dead pushes him to the brink of madness. Makes for one hectic weekend!

[Dingbat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been looking for this book for a while, hoping that it might be a lost noir classic, but I was disappointed. The drunken playwright, Ty Leander, has lost his wife in a fire, or has he? He wants to die, or does he? The plot twists frantically:167 pages are just not enough for its ludicrous convolutions. The characters are uniformly unpleasant.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Jan C · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kind of went back and forth on this one. Almost putting it down in a couple of spots. But, after I read that she also wrote Detour I plugged on. It turned out to be a pretty fair mystery once I figured out what was going on.

The problem is this book plunges you in like you already know what is happening. But you don't really find out what is happenening until it is resolved.

But there was an interesting cast of characters. Interesting trial. All around kind of bizarre. Kind of noir but not hard-boiled.

"The dead sing softly. The dead sing true."

Introduction to this volume was by Marcia Muller.