Kathryn Miller Haines

Rosie Winter is a down-and-out actress trying to make it in 1942 New York. Though she currently lives in a boarding house along with her best friend Jayne, she’ll soon be kicked out since she hasn’t booked a job in months. In order to make ends meet, Rosie has been moonlighting as a secretary with a private detective agency. However, she is forced to do some detecting of her own when she finds her boss dead in his office. The police think it’s a suicide, but Rosie believes it could be show more murder. Her subsequent investigations reveal that an incredibly significant play has gone missing, and several parties with dubious motives are on its trail. But can Rosie find a murderer and pursue her acting career, all without being killed herself?

The first thing about this book to catch my eye was Rosie’s noir-style narration. Her glib, cynical tone immediately got me in the mood for a darkly humorous mystery full of tough-talking dames and mafia thugs with hearts of gold. Fortunately, the book delivers all that and more. Rosie’s no-nonsense demeanor masks some internal vulnerability, but she never lets that get in the way of doing her job. I don’t know that I’d call her likeable – she’s a bit prickly for that – but she’s definitely a compelling character to read about. I also liked the book’s approach to its World War II setting. I find that most books set in this time period end up being all about the war. Here, it’s not exploited for any kind of emotional payoff; it’s merely the grim backdrop to Rosie’s everyday life.

Finally, I have to say that this is one of the best-plotted mysteries I have ever read. At first I was worried that there were too many distractions from the main issue of finding the murderer. There are some (seeming) detours into Rosie’s romantic background, her acting career, and her best friend Jayne’s romantic turmoil. But all my fears proved completely groundless as I was treated to one of the most dramatic reveals I’ve ever encountered. Even if I hadn’t enjoyed the setting or the characters, the last few chapters alone would have made the entire book worth it. I will definitely be tracking down the rest of this series to see where Rosie and her friends will go from here! show less

I really enjoyed this mystery set in WWII among the New York City theatre crowd. Our heroine, Rosie, is a struggling actress who makes some money on the side by doing office work for private detective. Until she finds him murdered in the office one morning. So, she has no paying job, her boyfriend has joined the navy and shipped out while their relationship was rocky, and she's about to get kicked out of her low rent actresses' hostel because it's been so long since she had a stage job she show more soon won't qualify as an actress to the manager. Rather than let this get her down, she starts looking into her boss's death, especially after it looks like it may have something to do with a job he was on searching for the missing play of a reclusive one-legged playwright.

The characters are really well drawn, and mostly likeable. We have Rosie's roomate and best friend, who is another actress. We have her friends mob boyfriend and some of his . . . interesting . . . connections. And various denizens of the theatre world. It all feels quite authentic, and I was not surprised to find that Ms. Haines has worked in that milieu for years. I am already on the hunt for book 2. show less

Third in the Rosie Winters series, Ms. Haines takes us to the South Pacific during World War II. Rosie and gal pal Jayne have joined the USO and are headed to the South Pacific to try to find Rosie’s ex-boyfriend, Jack, who is missing in action (MIA). The minute they step foot on the boat, the dead body of an actress/former WAC (Women’s Army Corp) is found shot and lying in the water.

What a start to an enthralling ride. Rosie and Jayne are wonderfully witty and downright stubborn in show more their pursuit of finding Jack, and their having to deal with military higher ups and movie stars—all who have something to hide--is an especially difficult challenge. The military slang was a delight and the USO events on the islands were memorable.

The historical settings seemed well researched and the characters had a down-to-earth realness to them, but the story was a little too neat and convenient when all those familiar faces were popping up in the same place. Overall, I really enjoyed this novel and would like to go back and read the first two books in the Rosie Winters series. show less

To preface, I started this (a trade paperback) because my Kindle quite simply had a hissy fit. When all's said and done, unless someone pours glue over it you will always be able to at least open a book: one reason I don't think "dead tree books" will ever go away.

"Discontent" is right (though the only "winter" is Rosie herself – this takes place in March. Which, all right, is technically winter…); Rosie is discontented, disgruntled, unhappy, and cranky. And miserable. She has every show more reason to be – her boyfriend (or is he?) is missing in action, and she can't get any further information; the War and the shortages and rationing and blackout that go with it are making life in general and life in the theatre in particular more challenging, not to mention the constant casualty lists in the paper; the weather is dismal; she is between shows; and her buddy Al has been arrested for murder. Still, it isn't what you might call fun when the first-person narrator is irritable to the point of chewing out her best friend and barely trying in a role she feels she is miscast for. It's a tribute to Kathryn Miller Haines and my fond memories of the first book that I stuck with her through the beginning of this one.

Al, it seems, has turned himself in for the murder of a young actress, and part of Rosie's misery is that she feels guilty: Al showed up to see her just hours before he was arrested, and she can't shake the feeling that he was trying to tell her something or ask her for help, and she brushed him off (being cross at the time). He doesn't want her help now, and says and does everything in his power to dissuade Rosie and her good friend and roomie Jayne from helping, but they will not be dissuaded. And off they go into a new investigation, centered around a new production, a mystery-shrouded mob-related situation, interwoven with new progress in the other abiding mystery in Rosie's life: the problem of her missing not-quite-fiancé.

I'm a bit impressed by the fact that Rosie seems to have grown from the last book, and also does so within this book. She has, in a couple of ways, a more solidly grounded reality to her than do a great many fictional characters who are expected to carry their books: hers is no white-washed Mary Sue personality. When she is miserable – discontented – she can and will take it out on those around her, including her beloved Jayne. She loathes Ruby, the snobbish knock-out who will go far in acting even if she has to destroy everyone in her path, and the two of them have a constant sniping relationship; realistically, neither is blameless in the nastiness. There is real pain on both sides, but they flat out don't like each other, and that will, apparently, never change: they may end up temporary allies as required, but they'll never be bosom pals. Rosie says and does things that she regrets, that cause pain, as do others; she learns from what she is feeling, from what is happening around her, and advances. I can't think of a non-coming-of-age story in which there's so much development to a character.

I don't think the slang in the book has changed since last outing, but for some reason I found it annoying in Discontent. "Shut your box" seemed to especially get on my nerves. On the other hand, it strikes me that if the slang of the time was so prevalent then, with no trace of it surviving here and now, then I should feel better about the "like" and the "bro" and all the rest of the stuff that makes me twitch; in a decade or so it'll start going away, and be gone … when the next generation's slang takes over. Bother. Oh well.

I only hope in the next books Rosie doesn't get a role through someone else's misfortune. That would have a similar feel to the "cozy" mysteries where the main character comes upon a corpse every six months or so; I wouldn't want to be friends with that person, and I wouldn't want to be in a show with an actor who was such a jinx.

At the beginning of the book I wasn't sure I'd make it through; by the end I was friends with Rosie again, and cared as much about what happened to her as ever; in her guilt over and apologies to Jayne for her ratty behavior she is also making amends to the reader, and that's another sign of growth. This is a very good book in a very good series. show less