Gypsy Rose Lee - The G-String Murders

[dem bones]

Gypsy Rose Lee - The G-String Murders (Penguin, 1984: Originally Simon & Schuster, 1941)

Valerie Warren

Blurb:

MURDER AT THE BURLESQUE EXPOSED! -
When stripper Lolita La Verne is found strangled with her own G-string, plucky fellow performer Gypsy Rose Lee and her sidekick-boyfriend, Biff Brannigan, are determined to uncover the evil- doer who is giving burlesque a bad name. Highlighted by its delightfully gaudy show-biz atmosphere ("Girls! Girls! Girls! Laffs! Laffs! Laffs! Boxing Thursday Nites!"), four-a-day, gazeeka boxes, grouch bags, pickle persuaders, and gold-digger hearts, The G-String Murders is a cheerfully ribald, intricate, and suspenseful yarn.

"Someone in my theatre is responsible for the raid! Someone in my theatre deliberately phoned the a complaint to the Purity League. Then they called the police. .... I wasn't notified until it was too late to contact my friends in the station and settle the beef amicably. Yes: someone thinks they are smarter than H. I. Moss."

As title suggests, story begins with the strangulation murder of a stripper at the "Old Opera" on 42nd Street, New York City in the aftermath of a heavy-handed police raid which sees Gypsy, Gee Gee Graham, Princess Niverna (faux Russian diva in furs), Lolita La Verne, Dolly Baxter, and fellow burlesque dancers busted on a dubious charge of "Producing an obscene play." True to his word, their manager, famed impresario and theatre owner H. I. Moss, has them out of jail and partying on champagne within the hour, sparing them a potential beating from mean hooker cellmates. "There's two things I hate. One's a baby killer, the other's a dame that strips down naked for a bunch of morons." During the raid, Gypsy was seized by the throat and half-throttled in the dark by someone she took to be the policewoman who booked her — it's only later she recalls her assailant had hairy hands. She confides in boyfriend 'Biff' Brannigan, the comedian/ amateur detective of the troupe, who suggests she stick to Seagrams no crown and give the dime thrillers a miss. Which is when we find the corpse of victim #1 all laid out naked on the closet floor. RIP, "The Golden-voiced Goddess," garrotted with a G-string.

p. 113 of 305

[helrunar]

I've been curious about this one for a long time. Your brilliant precis evokes a fanciful notion of Damon Runyon in diamante pasties. Hope it's fun.

cheers, Hel.

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

There is some debate about the authorship. It seems some thought the mystery writer Craig Rice (Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig) may have ghostwritten it, as they knew each other, however it is generally accepted Gypsy Rose Lee was indeed the author, probably with a little assistance from people she knew. Interestingly on the Craig Rice w*ki page there is a claim Janet Flanner, who was a famous journalist in her lifetime, was the ghostwriter.

[Michael Connolly]

Jan 14, 2023 22:16:33 GMT helrunar said:

I've been curious about this one for a long time. Your brilliant precis evokes a fanciful notion of Damon Runyon in diamante pasties. Hope it's fun.

cheers, Hel.

I've read it. It's okay. Lady of Burlesque is the inevitably watered down 1943 film version of it: youtu.be/38SEsZCYP04

[dem bones]

"You ain't gonna fry me! I ain't gonna take no hot squat!"

Finished it in three sittings. For me, The G-string Murders works best as an insight into the monotonous, bitchy, something other than glamorous life of a'forties stripper and, perhaps for the best, that stuff accounts for the bulk of the novel. While the murders are nasty enough, the mystery surrounding them isn't so effective. It doesn't help that the victims are the two least sympathetic characters in the book; the gals good as throw a party when blackmail babe gets hers in the gazeeka box (apparently, a burlesque equivalent of the magic box used by illusionists to disappear the gal in sequins). The dénouement does go on a bit - approximately twenty false endings is maybe overdoing things - though we get there in the end. I've nor read enough Spicy Detective pulps to draw comparison, but Gipsy Lee's novel is certainly how I'd want one to read; "Clean entertainment for the whole family!"

Who wrote it? jstor

[𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr]

Now you can move on to this.