This story centres around Hope House, a boarding house for young women in New York City. It was originally published in 1947 and is set during that time. The story tells of Ruth Miller, a store assistant who has just taken a room in Hope House and who has bright hopes for the future. As soon as she arrives she sees someone who terrifies her and the scene is set for her murder.
The first few chapters concern Ruth's arrival at Hope House and we realise that there is a mystery in her past which will come back to haunt her. She is soon found dead and the official verdict is suicide. However Roberta, a wealthy socialite who had befriended Ruth in the shop where she worked is not satisfied and persuades Private Investigator Mark East and a pair of spinster sleuths named Bessy and Belulah to take on the investigation despite a complete closing of ranks by the Hope House staff and residents.
The second part of the story concerns their investigations, initially into whether Ruth jumped or was pushed and then, on to the identity of the criminal.
Mark East, Betty Petty and Belulah Pond are series characters and appear in other novels by Hilda Lawrence. The characters are well drawn and the setting, a snowy, cold New York Christmas, is brought to life through the prose however I found some of the writing to be too whimsical for my taste.
Whilst I found Mark to be a competent investigator I thought that Betty and Belulah were quite irritating and, although they did help in the ultimate resolution of the story they did not, in my opinion anyway, produce any evidence which Mark would not have been able to find on his own,
The atmosphere in Hope House was particularly well imagined as it changed from a happy home to a sinister building in which the residents were terrified to stay but unable to leave even though they came to accept that there was a killer in their midst.
I felt the book was too long and could have been edited to make the story stand out more from the window dressing and the tension as the net closed on the killer much more prominent. I also did not really get on with the style of the prose though I think that it is probably fairly typical of post war American story telling.
There is little chance, I think, of the reader working out who the killer is until the revelation at the end and as such this has to be considered a character piece rather than a 'fair play' detective novel. Personally I think that it could be adapted into an excellent film where the undoubtedly clever and interesting story could be told against a backdrop of a New York winter and all the whimsical and superfluous sections could be removed.
I enjoyed the book and I certainly wanted to know who had committed the crime but I would not be in a rush to read any more of Hilda Lawrence's four novels.
In short this is an interesting story which sets it's scene well but which spends too much time on the trivial which detracts from the excitement of the story.

Initially, based on the title and to some extent the cover, I thought this would be a crime novel in the mould of Raymond Chandler or Mickey Spillane with lots of tough talk and action but I really couldn’t have been much further from the truth. Certainly there are elements of crime or ‘noir’ fiction but this is a lot more nuanced and indeed interesting! The writing is fresh and modern, even seventy years later, with many subtle touches and clever turns of phrase that regularly raise a smile and importantly for this ‘genre’ of fiction, the logic in solving of the case is clear and well constructed. It is a good crime novel but more than that it is a quality piece of writing.

Without rehashing the plot or the blurb, it is the victim we first meet and get to know through a few scenes which deftly explain her background and how she got to be in the situation that lead to her death. But more than this, we learn of her thoughts and fears. The ‘victim’ isn’t simply that; she is not a caricature or stereotype of a ‘doll’ who happens to be the victim around whom the investigation can run. This is a developed character, a real person who believes that her hopes and dreams are destroyed when her past catches up with her. She is much more than just the ‘doll’ of the title and indeed there is so much more to that title!

This story proves to be a real time capsule, exposing a way of life that no longer exists – showing the lives of single women living in New York in the mid-20th century. It is fascinating for that but it is also a great crime story where we really root for the victim and for the detective, and pray that her death will not be for nothing and that the killer will be discovered and that justice will be done. What more could you want from a ‘crime’ novel? First class.

This is the first Hilda Lawrence book I have read but I doubt it will be the last. A slow burner of a mystery that builds and builds till it fairly zips along.A young woman who has just moved into a hostel/home for young ladies in New York dies after falling from a seventh story window,the death is called suicide and all but forgotten.
However a wealthy customer at the department store where she worked isn't satisfied and calls in P.I Mark Eden.Sceptical to say the least at first he gradually comes to the conclusion that all is not as it seems.
Eden is not the hard boiled PI of Hammett or Chandler but a more thoughtful character who is happy to work wih the police who are not all portrayed as moronic thugs as many were in tales of the time.
There follows an investigation by Eden, questioning staff and residents of the Home ,a strange and varied group ,work colleagues and a picture unfolds and he slowly pieces together the events of the fateful night and the reasons for her death.

A great read well written and well constructed tale.

"Death of a Doll" is a mystery originally published in 1947 and set in New York city. The story begins in the viewpoint of the victim. We get strong hints about who the murderer is, but the murderer is never identified. There were only about 6 to 8 real suspects, and the death was initially dismissed as a suicide. The two old ladies come to visit their private detective friend, and they hear about the death from a rich lady who liked the shopgirl and is upset about the death. The girl had been excited about living at Hope House, so it made no sense that she'd commit suicide.

So the private investigator started to look into the death, and the two ladies somewhat bumblingly also investigated on their own. Soon, the private investigator was given official permission to question people and the police were also called in. At this point, it's a matter of questioning people and comparing their stories. Because we saw events from the viewpoint of the victim, I strongly suspected one character. Things happened that made me waver in my belief, but I kept coming back to that character and was correct in that guess. So whodunit is guessable, but not glaringly obvious.

The characters were interesting, but too many of them were viewpoint characters. The author just slipped from one character to the other, and this frequent change of viewpoint was sometimes confusing. There was occasional use of bad language. There was no sex. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting mystery.

I received a review copy of this. I've never read anything else by this author, and absolutely loved it. The detail about single women's lives in post war New York is fascinating, as it is set in a hostel for impoverished single women, and explores their options for survival in a very unforgiving city. The character studies are very well done, and explore a very unglamorous side of New York, while Hilda Lawrence's detective comes from a more affluent world, and initially treats the situation as a intellectual puzzle and then it becomes more serious.

This is an old american classic as opposed to the other british ones that I have reviewed on this blog, and there is a marked difference in the style of narration. It took me the better part of the first half to get into the story but once I got the hang of the tone of narration, the professional and amateur sleuths started to get interesting. The story centers around a home for working women in New York and Ruth Miller is excited to move in. We are given introductions to a few of the women in the house who will play minor and major roles in the upcoming chaos. The first part of the tale centers only around the suspicious circumstances that Ruth Miller finds herself in after she checks in. A few days later she is no longer alive. A friend of Ruth's takes up arms to find out more and she has two unofficial and one official investigator on the case.

These last few people are what bring the entertainment into the mix. Their styles of investigations wary but the conversations get more entertaining. Once the women in 'Hope House' become familiar it is hard to not keep guessing as to who the culprit could be. The entire book is filled with sketches of people (in words) and a form of character study that gets fun to read once it becomes more familiar. I really enjoyed the experience and would recommend it to those fans of crime classics who have a bit of time on their hands to leisurely peruse this book( do not give up on it till you get to the interesting bits, it will be worth it).

I did not guess the ending which in itself is a pleasure but I wish the book had been shorter and slightly less meandering at times but it was originally released in 1947 so I cannot really expect current length from something written then!

It took me a bit to be involved in this book, at the beginning I found it slow even if interesting.
After the first part it was engaging and entertaining.
It's like the picture of a long past era, even the style of writing seems a bit vintage and dated.
The mystery was good, full of interesting characters and twists.
A very good book, I hope I will be able to read other by this author.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Agora Books and Netgalley for this ARC. I voluntarily read and reviewed this book, all opinions are mine

Wow. If only I had paid more attention to the SMALL things at the beginning of the book, I might have figured it out before the denouement. This story was full of suspects - and any one of them COULD have done it. If you pay attention at the beginning, you should be able to figure out who pushed the doll out the window. If not, you're still in for a good story and a lot of fun. I'm going right off to find my next Hilda Lawrence book. Read this book - you won't regret it.

Hope House is a boarding home for women and Ruth Miller is happy to finally have a room there. So why is she found dead a few days after arriving. But everyone is convinced she committed suicide or it was an accident. But the atmosphere insode the home seems to have changed. Who will come to the dead girls' aid.
First published in 1947, the style of writing did make it a chore to get into the story. I also found the two elderly amateur detectives somewhat annoying. Overall I liked the mystery but did not love it.
A NetGalley Book

There were some really promising ideas at the heart of this book. The setting - a charitable boarding house for young women in the 1940s - was both historically and dynamically interesting. The intersection with the world of a Department Store was credible. The device of a masked party for which the girls made identical masks from cloth bags was both creepy and suspenseful. Unfortunately, the characters and the plot got out of hand. There were simply too many characters for the reader to keep track of, or distinguish. A few were sketched more fully than others, but very few took on a life of their own. A movie might have been able to create distinctions and visual clues that assisted, but the book left this reader with a sense of institutionalised crowd rather than a set of individuals with motives and opportunities.

Similarly, the plot took too long to lay its trails and relied on too many past histories.

The strength was in some of the scene-setting. The early description of a desperate girl waiting on a staircase to see a doctor lingers in my mind.

It certainly held enough interest for me to finish it, but it fell frustratingly short of what it might have been.

Thanks to Agora Books and Crime Classics for the chance to read and review it.

This was my first book by this author. It moved a little slow at first and the actions of the girls were not always quite believable. In spite of that I enjoyed the book, especially as it went along. The setting is interesting and feels authentic. It definitely has a "creep" factor - something going on that you feel but don't see right away. Recommend.

I really liked this book. Well written. Huge number of characters that require paying close attention as you read through. I love the who dun it kind of books. Clean and engaging. Highly recommend. I received a copy courtesy of Crime Classics and net galley.

This book was first published in 1947 so a little outdated but no less enjoyable for that.
Hope House is a New York boarding house for women. Ruth Miller, a sales clerk from a nearby department store moves in after talking to 2 current tenants and colleagues at work (Moke and Poke). She tells a regular customer, Mrs Sutton, at her counter how excited she is to have found such a good place where meals are provided and there is hot water - something we all take for granted in the modern world but apparently not common place back then. On her first evening at Hope House Ruth recognises a voice from her past - a person that turned Ruth's life upside down and made her move to New York and basically go into hiding. Ruth seems to have bad sight (and her glasses are broken) so cannot see the face to go with the voice. She proceeds to go out again and come back very late that night. En route back she leaves a note for a doctor friend to ring her but the note gets blown away and he never rings although Ruth waits all weekend for the call. Her roommate is away for the night and Ruth is terrified of the baddie coming to get her so has a restless night.
In the meantime Ruth plans to run away but unfortunately for her the manageress of Hope House (Miss Brady and her sidekick Miss Small) have some (to us) outdated ideas and basically stops her at every turn. Ruth takes her suitcase to work and gets a half day but unfortunately Miss Brady is conveniently loitering outside and jumped in the cab with Ruth and for all intents and purposes kidnaps her and brings her back to Hope House. There is a party due and all the girls wear the same costume so Ruth plans on making her way to the door but again she is stopped. Later that evening Ruth falls to her death. It is ruled suicide and everyone is happy until Mrs Sutton comes back from her trip to the country and finds Ruth dead and raises suspicions. She gets a friend Mr East to investigate (grudgingly at first as he too believes it was suicide). Also 2 amateur detectives are visiting at the same time, Miss Beulah Pond and Miss Bessy Petty, and they also help the plot along. Later a 2nd girl is attacked but luckily does not die and this convinces Mark East that Ruth's death was not a suicide but he needs to act quick to unmask the killer before anyone else gets killed.
Having never read this author before I did not know what to expect but was thoroughly entertained and kept guessing until close to the end. The book may be a little dated with regards to how single women were treated in boarding houses but the book is essentially a murder mystery and a classic whodunnit. There are clues peppered around and a few red herrings thrown in. It is very easy reading and a page turner. Definitely an author I would read more of.

I didn't think I was going to like this as it all started so slowly and the chapters were never ending but I'm glad I stuck with it as it was excellent. The novel begins with the suspicious death of Ruth Miller who had only just moved into Hope House a few days earlier. The police investigated and presumed suicide because of what they were told about Ruth being nervous etc. A concerned friend who knew Ruth from the department store she worked in Knew that she would not take her own life as she was so excited for the future and she asked a private detective to look into the matter. The case took another twist when another girl in Hope House was attacked in a bathroom and left for dead. The private detective follows the leads and calls in the police again and eventually they apprehend the killer.

This is actually third in the Mark East series and I hadn’t read the first two. However, I decided to break my usual rule about reading a series out of order and gave this a try, as I liked the sound of the setting.

Published in 1947, this is set in Hope House, a New York boarding home for women. Ruth Miller, who, like the other tenants of Hope House, has a fairly lowly paid job, works in a department store. She is delighted to have been accepted at Hope House, and tells her favourite customer all about it; the boarding hotel having been recommended by two of her colleagues in the stockroom. However, once Ruth moves in, her excitement turns to fear. She spies someone from her past and she fears that she has also been recognised. ..

This mystery is, obviously, dated. For me, though, this is part of the charm and I enjoyed the setting of Hope House and the scenes at Blackman’s Department Store. There is a good deal of tension, as Ruth tries to decide what to do. When there is a party, held at Hope House, all the girls wear masks and, later, Ruth is found dead – a suspected suicide. Ruth may have been a young, poorly paid worker, but someone cares that she is gone and an investigation begins to uncover what happened.

There are lots of interesting, and some quite odd, characters. Also, there is lots of period flavour and this will have great appeal to anyone who enjoys early mysteries. If you are interested in going back and reading the series from the beginning, the first book is, “Blood Upon the Snow,” published in 1944 and, “A Time to Die,” published in 1945. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

A suicide in an all girls home. But could her tragic suicide actually be a tragic murder?

When Ruth joins the girls home she is startled by someone.. someone from her past. We get the feeling her death and this person are connected but the book teases us until about 60%!

A little slow but it kept me interested

Lillian Harris, a department store sales clerk, is excited to move into Hope House, a respectable rooming house for women of slender means, subsidized by wealthy New York patrons. However, something or someone frightens her so badly as she moves in that she is terrified to leave her room. The next evening she is found dead from a fall from an upper story. The police deem it suicide, but a customer she befriended doesn't believe it and hires Mark East, an upper-class detective, to delve deeper into the matter. He is assisted by two elderly ladies who have their own bumbling methods of looking into the incident. What they discover is that Hope House harbors secrets that some wish to keep buried. The author populates the book with many suspects and red herrings to keep the reader guessing "who did it." The book is a product of it's time where grown women are "girls." These "girls" act a bit odd, but that may well be part of the author's plan. Overall, a good classic crime where tensions mount as the book progresses.

Thanks to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Death of a Doll.

I have to admit I requested this book because of the old timey, fun timey noir-ish cover.

Originally published in old timey, fun timey 1940s, Death of a Doll has been re-released and features a private detective named and his two cohorts, meddling sisters.

I really wanted to like this book. Really.

But it was hard.

The mystery wasn't that bad; was the death of a young woman a suicide or foul play?

There were many, many characters; no one was really interesting or sympathetic.

The prose was long and drawn out and frankly, boring.

This just wasn't for me; also, the outdated references and slang were hard to understand and relate to and I didn't want to Google them.

Death of a Doll had me interested from the cover. Simple yet terribly effective, it draws the eye and makes me think of classic crime novels. A fantastic cover design!

The premise of the book is intriguing- a young girl, Ruth Miller, moves to Hope House, a home for girls run by Miss Brady and Miss Small. She is a saleswoman at Blackman’s in the toiletries department and has regular, loyal customers such as Mrs Sutton to chat to. However, during a party at Hope House, whilst the entire home are dressed as rag dolls, Ruth falls to her death from the seventh floor of the building. Instantly it is ruled a suicide, but Mrs Sutton doesn’t believe it. She involves Private Investigator Mark East to solve the mystery. There are multiple threads to this story – Ruth Miller’s death, the mystery behind the musical powder box, and Ruth’s past being among them. I liked how they all separated and then merged again neatly at the end. It bulked the story out more and gave for a more rounded investigation.

It is clear from the off that we as readers already know a fair bit more about Ruth than does Mark East. For instance, we know that upon entering the home, she sees something or someone that alarms her, that sets into motion her plans to leave the house unseen. We know that she has some connection to a person in the house, other than her two fellow employees at Blackman’s. It’s fun being one step ahead in the investigation, and I enjoyed this aspect of the book!

The characters are a mixed bunch. I felt that the some of them could have been introduced better, particularly Mark East, Beulah and Bessy. They just sort of appeared in the story and it took me a while to figure out what they were doing there. As for the two older ladies, Beulah and Bessy were an interesting pair. Absolute busybodies who occasionally irritated me, but ultimately they offer some comedic value to an otherwise serious novel.

The pacing bothered me a little however. For example, I enjoyed finding out about Ruth prior to her untimely death, though I have to admit to finding the beginning a bit too long. I found myself waiting for the Unfortunate Event to take place so the plot would move forward. It wasn’t until about 60% of the way in that I realised I was now enjoying the novel. After this point, you can see the separate threads of the crime coming together and the pacing improved.

Overall this is an intriguing read. The murder mystery is interesting enough to keep me reading, but it wasn’t fast enough to hold my interest throughout. The characters for me weren’t the stars of the book – none of them shined particularly bright, but the plot makes up for that. Not a book I would re-read, but I’m glad I read it. Recommendable to lovers of classic crime!

Hope House is a home for girls who don't have much money. They get a bed in a double room and two meals a day. The nominal head is Miss Brady, but Miss Small works for her and appears to have a lot of authority. Ruth Miller, a young woman who works at a department store called Blackmans, has applied to live at Hope House. She has a customer, Mrs Sutton who is very fond of Ruth. She is pleased to hear that Ruth has a nice place to stay.

When Ruth presents herself at Hope House she appears to be very happy. However, very shortly she suddenly appears afraid. Sure enough, she is found dead the next day, supposedly from having jumped out of the window. However, Mrs. Sutton doesn't believe she would have done that, and hires her detective friend, Mark, to look into it. He very soon realizes that she was murdered before she was thrown out of the window. He does a lot of investigating and gives information to Foy, the local policeman. He also finally finds out about where she came from and the person who was her enemy.

The book is very suspenseful as we near the end and Hope House is full of police closing in on the perpetrator who must be one of two people.