Mood Indigo: An Edna Ferber Mystery

Set in New York during the winter of 1933, Ifkovic’s outstanding ninth mystery featuring writer Edna Ferber (after 2017’s Old News) opens at British playwright Noel Coward’s 33rd birthday party at his penthouse overlooking the East River. The guests, who include such celebrities as composer Irving Berlin and actor Leslie Howard, are singing Christmas carols when Dougie Maddox, the hapless scion of old Manhattan money, and his showgirl lover, Belinda Ross, enter the room and start to dance. When Belinda later turns up strangled in a Times Square Automat, many believe hot-tempered Dougie is the culprit. Edna sets out to prove his innocence. Many scenes crackle with tension—especially the confrontations between Edna and Dougie’s ferocious widowed mother, Lady Maud, with whom he lives in a Fifth Avenue mansion. Ifkovic adroitly squeezes huge amounts of research into the story, with glimpses of people in the arty New York scene as well as the poor on the streets. The novel’s main strength, though, is its vivid depiction of a country in crisis in the depths of the Depression. (Jan.)