Dead Language and Other Stories - Jacey, Helen

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Résumé :
The latest book in the thrilling female detective 1940s crime noir series, Elvira Slate Investigations. A collection of novelettes featuring ex-con turned Hollywood private eye Elvira Slate, a former gangster's moll from London, a fugitive from justice, who has reinvented herself as a Hollywood private eye. The series completely reinvents 1940s noir with a female gaze, with a cast of diverse characters who smash the stereotypes of the genre. This gripping collection of mystery stories complement the first two full-length novels in the series: Jailbird Detective: Elvira Slate Investigations Book 1 and Chipped Pearls: Elvira Slate Investigations Book 2. This is transatlantic crime set in a turbulent decade. Elvira's British past and her American present and future reflect the realities of career women's lives in the post-war years. In this collection, we follow Elvira Slate as she undertakes a series of cases for her new female clients. Elvira couldn't wish for a more challenging bunch: a deadly mob boos, a mysterious millionaires, and a formidable beauty entrepreneur. Little do these well-heeled and ruthless women suspect that Elvira is a fugitive from justice, an ex-gangster's moll wanted in England for triple murder. They must never find out. With the help of her private detective mentor, and a dubious if attractive LAPD cop, Elvira slowly rebuilds her life. If only the ghosts from her past life in London would leave her alone. Dead Language and Other Stories features five thrilling stories: In Female Gumshoe, Elvira finds herself taking on a case for her ex-LAPD vice cop handler, only to discover a violent murder is linked to a complex blackmail scam. In Palm Flings, when Elvira is asked by gangster boss Reba T to go undercover on the chorus line at a new nightclub opening in Palm Springs, she fears she will fail the mission and incur her dangerous client's wrath. In the oppressive desert heat, Elvira learns that trusting her intuition is the only way to survive. In Beauty Contests, when a model goes missing before an important launch event, Elvira is blamed. She races against the clock to find the missing model, only to discover a gruesome murder. Can she catch the killer and find the model in the same day? In Dead Language, Elvira helps another female private eye out on a case, only to be dragged into another more sinister web of intrigue. In Made Moll, we travel back to 1941, London, when Elvira Slate is about to be sent to prison. She remembers the fork in the road when she is sixteen and has to choose between a life of criminality or lonely respectability.