My True Love Lies

Book excerpt: In this Golden Age mystery set in post-World War II California, an art student must determine who fits the mold of a killer. The War is over, but only just, and San Francisco is still crammed with military uniforms. Of course, being San Francisco, it’s also crammed with Bohemians (in a few years, they’ll be known as Beatniks). Noel Bruce straddles both camps: By day she’s a strait-laced driver for the Navy, but at night she lets her hair down and parties with her flamboyant art-school chums. The party comes to a screeching halt, however, when a dead body turns up in a sculptor’s studio, and the artists discover that pretentious mannerisms and amusing facial hair provide little defense against the chill of fear . . . As in Skeleton Key, the heroine is a working woman, and, like all of Offord’s novels, My True Love Lies provides an intriguing bridge between old-fashioned, 1930s-style plotting and a kind of feminism that feels startlingly up-to-date. “Mrs. Offord with each book entrenches herself more firmly as one of our leading feminine mystery novelists . . . There is always a reasonable plot backed by warm characters, and above all, intelligent writing.” —Dorothy B. Hughes, author of In a Lonely Place