M. Ruth Myers

Ah, I can't get enough of Maggie and her pals. In this fifth full-length episode, she takes on the search for a missing engineer. Nobody is sure if he has absconded with some critical figures for his firm's project, or whether he's been kidnapped. The infamous date December 7, 1941 comes midway through this book, and impending war in the Pacific casts a sort of ominous shadow over the rest of the book.

I liked the new or story-specific characters, especially Tabby Warren, former owner of a show more building that was used as a speakeasy during Prohibition. (There's something really great about the way Ms Myers writes these strong women; can't quite put my finger on it, but it works for me.) During the course of her investigations, Maggie seems to always get knocked around somewhere along the line, but she can give as good as she gets when the need arises.

Now, having read the entire series, including the shorts, I'll be eagerly awaiting the next one... show less

Solving a crime during the early 1930s was much different from what happens today. There was no DNA evidence, no easy communication to compare notes with other localities, no sophisticated equipment. What was available was the crime scene itself, eyewitnesses, accurate or not, and detective work to determine what evidence was or was not available.
In THE BAREFOOT STIFF, Maggie Sullivan is a short, sassy, perceptive detective whose abilities are both unrecognized and unappreciated by the show more police department. She doesn’t let that stop her, though a shortage of clients left her continuously looking for some to help her pay her bills.
When a blonde approached her at a lunch counter telling her that a “Gentleman wants to hire you,” and offered her ten dollars, she told her that she only took jobs from people who came to her office. She watched as the blonde walked away and realized that “Ten bucks would put gas in my car for a year and then some.”
A few hours later, Maggie was beginning to regret her quick reaction. “...a dead plant in the corner of my office and the bottle of gin in my bottom drawer both saw things my way. What could it hurt to listen to whoever had send the blonde?”
She decided to go to the address she had seen written on the $10 bill and ended up finding a recently killed man.
The police considered her to be a witness even though the man was already dead when she arrived at the scene. But they missed some evidence that she noticed and she decided to investigate on her own as they tried to identify the man and figure out a motive. One possibility that the police offered was that he was a bank robber. “Bank robberies had become a dime a dozen once the end of Prohibition left unemployed bootleggers seeking other sources of income.” Maggie began to focus on the evidence that wasn’t there to answer those questions.
Having read so many full-length detective novels, it took a different mindset to read one in a short story form. But THE BAREFOOT STIFF has all the elements of a full length novel but in a very condensed form.
I like M. Ruth Myers’ writing style as well as her characters and how they handle situations. There is not much character development but, in this short story, it wasn’t expected.
I’m looking forward to her next full length novel.
This book was a free Amazon download. show less

Who is Adrianne and why does it matter?

Maggie Sullivan never disappoints.
The series about this smart, independent, feisty private detective, takes the readers into life in the 1920s-40s in Dayton, Ohio. As one of the characters in A DAME WORTH KILLING said, “You’re smart and tough and don’t give up.” And that character, a high ranking criminal, had been on opposite sides in previous book but she was promised, “If you do what he wants, you got his goodwill now and in the show more future.”
A DAME WORTH KILLING takes place right after the end of World War II. A woman comes to Maggie’s office looking for help locating her daughter, Adrianne, who disappeared a week previously. There had been no messages or ransom notes. She hadn’t gone to the police because the daughter was an adult and Adrianne’s father was well-known to the police because of his criminal activities.
At first, Maggie did not want to take the case, but then remembered previous situations: “If someone without money or influence came to me for helps because they couldn’t get it anywhere else, I would most likely give it. I had on several occasions. Did the woman before me deserve less consideration because she had money and a husband whose name brought suspicion and mistrust?”
When Maggie met with the family–the parents, two sisters, two sons-in-law, and a prospective fiancé, she realized that everyone had different ideas of who Adrianne was. Much of the information they provided was not helpful.
Maggie was finally able to locate a friend who might have had knowledge of Adrianne’s whereabouts, but soon discovered that both she and the friend were being followed.
Followers of Maggie from previous books in the series will find that Heebs, a street kid who had latched on to Maggie and helped her in previous cases before he enlisted in WWII is back. But he is not the same. “It wasn’t just part of his arm he’d lost in the war. Something bright and eager was also missing.”
There are some sexist comments, mostly from incidental characters, which was common at that time.
A comment by Heebs caused me to take a deep breath and think more fully about life in that period (and today as well): “I’ve never been in a house before.”
Well-written, flowing plot, well-drawn characters, possible situations, and on target descriptions.
The next book in the series already seems to have a lot of promise.
This review is from an Advanced Ready Copy. show less

This is a really solid "first follow-on" to the author's Maggie Sullivan mystery series. The protagonist, Heebs, first shows up in that series as a street kid of about 10, and through those novels, we see him grow up, go to war, and return. This new one picks up a few years later, circa 1955, after he has established himself as a detective in his own right, under Maggie's tutelage. Now moved to a different city in a different state. I like some of the new characters, like Lulu and the show more doctor, and of course the new dog "Chaucer". LOL. I really enjoyed the whole experience, and it feels like a natural tie-in to the other series. I hope to see more soon!

The only thing about this book... I bought it originally on 'Zon, but couldn't extract the file to read on any non-K*ndle device. And it seemed to have DRM, so I returned it. Pffft. Then I bought on Kobo, and went through idiotic gyrations to extract a usable EPUB file from the Kobo device because of their walled garden. (I.e., it comes in some wonky package with wonky filenames and cruft. The content I ended up with eventually is still a bit wonky internally.) Sorry, but I get annoyed with books that I can't trivially port to my device(s) and reading software of choice. The fact that I took the time to figure it out and then read it with pleasure is a great compliment to the author. show less