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  • Published: 15 October 2006
  • ISBN: 9780345478115
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $14.99

This Dame for Hire

A Novel





For members of Sandra Scoppettone's loyal fan club; for devotees of novels set in Manhattan; for readers who love fiction set during World War II: the debut of an intriguing new mystery series to satisfy everyone in the categories above.

"I didn’t start out to be a private eye. I thought I was gonna be a secretary–get my boss his java in the morning, take letters, and so on. Hell, I didn’t get my degree in steno to put my life on the line. It was true I wanted an interesting job, but that I’d end up a PI myself . . . it never entered my mind."

New York, 1943. Almost anything in pants has gone to serve Uncle Sam in the war–including Woody Mason, the head of a detective agency in midtown Manhattan. Left to run the show is his secretary, Faye Quick, who signed on to be a steno, not a shamus. At twenty-six and five foot four, there’s not much to Faye, but she’s got moxie–which she’ll need when she stumbles over a dead girl in the street and takes on her first murder case.

This victim wasn’t any ordinary girl. Claudette West was a student at NYU and the daughter of a Park Avenue family. Faye, who lives in bohemian Greenwich Village–where no one cares how you look–ventures uptown, where people care enough about money to kill for it. Claudette’s father is convinced greed was the motive, and that Claudette’s working-class boyfriend, Richard Cotten, killed the girl because she threw him off the gravy train.

Faye, however, isn’t so sure, not when she learns about all the other men Claudette was secretly seeing–from her lecherous literature professor to an apparent con artist. For Faye, there are more shocking surprises in store than turns and dips in the Coney Island Cyclone.

Going after the bad guys and fighting a good fight on the home front, Faye is as scrappy and endearing as any character Sandra Scoppettone has ever created, and This Dame for Hire’s period setting is rendered so real you can hear the big band music, see the nylons and fedoras, and feel the rumble of the Third Avenue El. When it comes to an irresistible detective and a riveting new series, you must remember this: Here’s looking at Faye Quick.

  • Published: 15 October 2006
  • ISBN: 9780345478115
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $14.99

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Praise for This Dame for Hire

* "An original idea--a female PI working on her own in 1943--and an unusually imaginative portrait of a New York City coping, surviving, even thriving during WWII." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

* "What a voice This Dame has! It's 1943, and. . .New York is here in all its noir glory, from fancy uptown digs to bohemian Greenwich Village." -- S. J. Rozan

* "This dame's as likable a New Yorker as you're apt to find outside da Bronx." -- Laurie R. King

* "Funny, tender, historically fascinating, This Dame for Hire has something for mystery readers of every kind." -- Ed Gorman

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