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Miss Withers investigates a man who appears to have hanged himself while driving As snow falls on the steps of the New York Public Library; a line of cars moves sluggishly down Fifth Avenue. Oblivious to the traffic, a blue Chrysler roadster tears down the street, hops the curb, and slams to a halt. The car is empty, its driver thrown half a block back. He is stone dead, his cigarette still burning, and a noose tied tight around his neck. First on the scene is Detective Oscar Piper, followed show more closely by Hildegarde Withers, a schoolmarm with more than a passing interest in crime. They are a close-knit pair, and would have been married by now if murder didn't keep getting in the way. Piper and Miss Withers must race across New York, attempting to learn how a man can be hanged while driving, and to do whatever it takes to keep his twin from suffering the same fate. Murder on Wheels is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard. show lessTags
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Murder on Wheels, Stuart Palmer’s second novel in the Hildegarde Withers series, doesn’t rank as highly as the first, The Penguin Pool Murder, but it’s still plenty good. Don’t be fooled by the red herring in Chapters 3 and 4; it will take the savvy Miss Withers to deduce the murderer in Murder on Wheels.
Published in 1932, Palmer’s novel still reads as fresh in the Great Recession as in the Great Depression. Astute detective work combines with witty dialogue and great scenes from a gentler New York City to make this a wonderful read. As a native New Yorker, I was bemused at this Manhattan of 80 years ago, when police inspectors didn’t bother with pistols, cabbies reported crimes, and middle-aged schoolteachers thought show more nothing of tramping through the city after dark on their own.
In Murder on Wheels, 39-year-old Miss Withers, as formidable at sleuthing as she is at keeping her third-grade class of hooligans at Jefferson School polite and on task, joins her beau, the cigar-chomping Inspector Oscar Piper in an investigation; they’re looking into the death of a man thrown from a Chrysler roadster on Forty-second Street near Fifth Avenue and killed — but not in an automobile fatality. The man, identified as Lawrence “Laurie” Stait, died at the end of a noose, as if he’d hanged himself. Withers and Piper immediately sense that it’s not suicide but murder, and they look hard at Laurie’s identical twin Lew, his domineering grandmother, his dithering Aunt Abbie, his milquetoast cousin Hubert, a possible love interest named Dana, and a saucy upstairs maid, Gretchen Gilbert, who clearly knows more than she’s telling. Miss Withers and Inspector Piper enter into a bit of a competition to see who can uncover more clues and discover the murderer first. After Piper’s bouts of lecturing about “the power of the trained detective mind” and Miss Withers’ deficiencies at crime detection because she’s a woman, it’s great fun to see her come out on top much more often than not. show less
Published in 1932, Palmer’s novel still reads as fresh in the Great Recession as in the Great Depression. Astute detective work combines with witty dialogue and great scenes from a gentler New York City to make this a wonderful read. As a native New Yorker, I was bemused at this Manhattan of 80 years ago, when police inspectors didn’t bother with pistols, cabbies reported crimes, and middle-aged schoolteachers thought show more nothing of tramping through the city after dark on their own.
In Murder on Wheels, 39-year-old Miss Withers, as formidable at sleuthing as she is at keeping her third-grade class of hooligans at Jefferson School polite and on task, joins her beau, the cigar-chomping Inspector Oscar Piper in an investigation; they’re looking into the death of a man thrown from a Chrysler roadster on Forty-second Street near Fifth Avenue and killed — but not in an automobile fatality. The man, identified as Lawrence “Laurie” Stait, died at the end of a noose, as if he’d hanged himself. Withers and Piper immediately sense that it’s not suicide but murder, and they look hard at Laurie’s identical twin Lew, his domineering grandmother, his dithering Aunt Abbie, his milquetoast cousin Hubert, a possible love interest named Dana, and a saucy upstairs maid, Gretchen Gilbert, who clearly knows more than she’s telling. Miss Withers and Inspector Piper enter into a bit of a competition to see who can uncover more clues and discover the murderer first. After Piper’s bouts of lecturing about “the power of the trained detective mind” and Miss Withers’ deficiencies at crime detection because she’s a woman, it’s great fun to see her come out on top much more often than not. show less
Maybe only 2.5* as I found one aspect quite obvious, though I didn't guess who the killer was.
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43+ Works 1,576 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Murder On Wheels
- Original publication date
- 1932
- People/Characters
- Hildegarde Withers
- First words
- Like the note of a pitch-pipe between the lips of some mad, unearthly chorus leader, the traffic officer's whistle sounded its earsplitting E above high C.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)He confidently expected to be punished for the deed, but much to his relief the body of the thing was not discovered until, in company with his master and his new mistress, he was aboard a Bermuda-bound liner.
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- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.14)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 7
- ASINs
- 5
