White-Metal Murders

by: J. Bruce Monson

Published by: Outskirts Press

Reviewed by Stephanie Boyd

If you like old-fashioned gumshoe type of detective stories, then you will like White-Metal Murders. The main character is a private detective who dresses inexpensively, lives in a cheap apartment, has few clients, and has an office in an old building with one employee–a sexy secretary he has a relationship with.

This PI does have a good reputation and has solved some cases before, but he still isn’t living the high life. His problem this time starts out with the fact that someone has conked him over the head and he doesn’t know who he is, where he is, and who the sexy blond is in the bed next to him.

As the story develops, our valiant detective begins to regain his memory only to find he has even more problems. He is in the middle of a double murder case of two employees of a model car manufacturing company–and he doesn’t know what he has already figured out so he has to start all over. He has a clue he has apparently found and hid, and someone seems to want to find real bad. Plus he now seems to have two girlfriends and a number of potential suspects who all appear to be involved in this mystery to sort through.

This story is cute, humorous, and full of surprises for our plucky private eye. Besides the detective, a lot of other interesting characters inhabit the story. Author Monson also does a good job of keeping the story moving along. At one point it seems like the detective has a different suspect in each chapter as he finds connections to the case for many of his suspects–and then he moves on to the next suspect and finds they also have unexplained connections. This works well in this story because it fits with the character of our confused detective, but as he regains his memory, he also becomes much sharper and continues to get closer to the solution. I didn’t figure out the solution until almost the end of the story!

I enjoyed White-Metal Murders and would read other adventures of this detective story.

Armchair Interviews says: A good conk on the detective’s head makes for a good story.