Lullaby of Murder

Despite the reference to the song “Lullaby of Broadway” in the title Lullaby of Murder, this third novel in Dorothy Salisbury Davis’ Julie Hayes series is peopled not with Broadway stars but with the also-rans: Julie herself, an unsuccessful actress turned assistant on a gossip column, Tony Alexander Says…, which is written by a bitter second-tier old tabloid columnist who feels he doesn’t get his due respect from the theater world; a fired press agent on the downhill slide, a child actress trying to make a comeback, and a bevy of unemployed and unemployable actors.

Julie and her globetrotting New York Times columnist husband, Geoffrey Hayes, who is much more successful and 15 years her senior, are having dinner as he’s show more preparing to return to Paris. A visibly drunk publicist, Jay Phillips, announces that he’s been fired, and hours later he’s jumped off a bridge.

But Julie suspects that Jay Phillips’ death wasn’t actually a suicide. When her boss Tony Alexander is murdered, she believes there’s a connection. Julie pursues the case, as much to clear Tony’s wife and stepdaughter as in pursuit of justice for a man who was much more flawed than Julie ever knew.

Julie Hayes mysteries are always an amalgam of cozy, noir and the hunger at the heart of every actor, whether ingénue, Broadway superstar, or has-been on the way down and out. But each novel also differs more from each other than the entries usually do in a series (e.g., Agatha ChristieAgatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot novels share a sensibility, as do Elizabeth Peters’s Vicky Bliss novels), enough that you wouldn’t have been surprised if they were by different authors. I’ve already begun the final novel in the series, Habit of Fear, which is so different from the previous three that it reads as if it had been written by Lawrence Block rather than the author of The Judas Cat. If you feel variety is the spice of life, then you should rely on Dorothy Salisbury Davis to be your spice cabinet. show less