Girl Detectives edition by Ann Sterzinger Frankie O'Malley Literature Fiction eBooks
Download As PDF : Girl Detectives edition by Ann Sterzinger Frankie O'Malley Literature Fiction eBooks 
Join Edgar Rodger, a fledgling private eye and former murder-desk rewrite man for a Chicago daily, as he descends into the bizarre world of the city's favorite artsy-cultural alternative weekly paper. Inspired equally by Wodehouse and Chandler, Girl Detectives lightens the murder-mystery brew with social satire and sick slapstick as it conjures up a fun-house milieu where nobody can seem to be themselves- not even a corpse. Kimmie Wrigley, a functional illiterate whose family fortune helped her skate into a job as a Chiculture staff writer, was driving her editor to drink when she disappeared. She was also busy stealing a man from Maurinette Meede, the imperious, blue-blooded food critic . But the paper's proofreaders -- all slightly unhinged by their 'intellectual' dead-end jobs - also hated the dopey heiress on principle. With so many potential killers, there's only one thing for Rodger to do blackmail them till they sign on as deputy detectives and rat each other out.
Girl Detectives edition by Ann Sterzinger Frankie O'Malley Literature Fiction eBooks
The problem with reading a novelist’s first book after their later ones is that since most writers improve as they get older, you can’t help but view their earlier work in the context of what they’re putting out now. Flaws in their characterization and prose that have been smoothed over or eliminated in later works jut out like pilonidal cysts. Since first novels typically are more autobiographical than later ones, you have to resist viewing the book as an exercise in self-indulgence. Even if the book is really good—as is the case with talented writers—you’ll always think less of it than if you had read it with virgin eyes.Girl Detectives is such a book. I’ve heaped praise on Ann Sterzinger’s novels NVSQVAM (Nowhere) and The Talkative Corpse, but Girl Detectives isn’t on the same level as those books. It’s not a bad novel by any means—it’s funny, piercing and shows signs of Sterzinger’s later genius—but compared to her more recent work, it falls short. This shouldn’t stop you from reading it, but don’t expect it to blow your brains out of your skull.
Girl Detectives is half-slapstick mystery novel (think Chandler as adapted by the Coen brothers, with a dash of The Women-style bitterness), half-chronicle of the last days of print journalism. The plot centers around the primarily female employees of Chiculture (loosely based off of the Chicago Reader, where Sterzinger worked as a copyeditor) and how the murder of one of their colleagues changes their world for—haha, just kidding! They’re all a bunch of backstabbing twits.
The characters at Chiculture are depicted with the sort of seething, comic resentment that can only be acquired from years working a s*** job. There’s Maurinette Meede, the spoiled, bratty restaurant critic; Humph Moray, effete book critic and Maurinette’s squeeze; Sybil Sarta, the laughably unqualified, catty arts editor; and Kimmie Wrigley, the pretentious lefty rich girl whose murder sets the plot in motion.
Girl Detectives’ protagonist is Pill Dombrowski, Chiculture’s grouchy, alcoholic copyeditor and, along with Maurinette Meede, one of the suspects in Kimmie’s murder. Most of the book’s laughs come from Pill’s clashes with everyone else around her: her pretentious, phony colleagues, her useless leech of a brother, and the bumbling private eye Edgar Roger, hired by Kimmie’s parents to investigate her death. I suspect Sterzinger based Pill on herself, based on Pill’s position as copyeditor, her noticeably non-WASP, difficult-to-pronounce surname, and the fact that both of them are from Wisconsin.
So, all good so far. So what’s wrong with Girl Detectives?
Simply put, the book lacks bite. While it’s hilarious and gripping, the book doesn’t have the spark that NVSQVAM (Nowhere) and The Talkative Corpse do. Sterzinger plays with and subverts the tropes of detective fiction throughout the book, but her work never seems to rise above the level of pastiche. While Girl Detectives is roughly the same length as NVSQVAM, a lot of it (particularly in the opening chapters) feels like filler; more than once, I had to hold back the urge to jam my Kindle’s touch screen to skip to the next chapter. Additionally, while Sterzinger weaves a fairly intricate plot, the ending doesn’t hit you with any kind of oomph; the book just sort of grinds to a halt.
Put simply, reading Girl Detectives after NVSQVAM and The Talkative Corpse is like listening to the EPs My Bloody Valentine released with Paul Conway after listening to Loveless.
This is not to bash the book; for all its flaws, Girl Detectives is still a gripping and hilarious read. If you haven’t read any of Sterzinger’s other books, read this first. If you have read her other novels, go into Girl Detectives with an open mind. Nobody ever hit a home run the first time they got up to bat.
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Girl Detectives edition by Ann Sterzinger Frankie O'Malley Literature Fiction eBooks Reviews
Great read!
You don't have to work for a newspaper to appreciate this book but it sure helps!
All kidding aside, this Chicago murder mystery had me hanging on every word.
Not so much for the Up With People crowd, but we're talking about people committing murder and selling out their "friends" to save their own necks.
"Girl Detectives" feels true; I practically tasted the beer when murder suspect Pill Dombrowski and her brother were contemplating atoms, the void, and the North Side of Chicago.
Not for the faint of heart, but worth your time.
This is the best "new" book I've read in years.
The problem with reading a novelist’s first book after their later ones is that since most writers improve as they get older, you can’t help but view their earlier work in the context of what they’re putting out now. Flaws in their characterization and prose that have been smoothed over or eliminated in later works jut out like pilonidal cysts. Since first novels typically are more autobiographical than later ones, you have to resist viewing the book as an exercise in self-indulgence. Even if the book is really good—as is the case with talented writers—you’ll always think less of it than if you had read it with virgin eyes.
Girl Detectives is such a book. I’ve heaped praise on Ann Sterzinger’s novels NVSQVAM (Nowhere) and The Talkative Corpse, but Girl Detectives isn’t on the same level as those books. It’s not a bad novel by any means—it’s funny, piercing and shows signs of Sterzinger’s later genius—but compared to her more recent work, it falls short. This shouldn’t stop you from reading it, but don’t expect it to blow your brains out of your skull.
Girl Detectives is half-slapstick mystery novel (think Chandler as adapted by the Coen brothers, with a dash of The Women-style bitterness), half-chronicle of the last days of print journalism. The plot centers around the primarily female employees of Chiculture (loosely based off of the Chicago Reader, where Sterzinger worked as a copyeditor) and how the murder of one of their colleagues changes their world for—haha, just kidding! They’re all a bunch of backstabbing twits.
The characters at Chiculture are depicted with the sort of seething, comic resentment that can only be acquired from years working a s*** job. There’s Maurinette Meede, the spoiled, bratty restaurant critic; Humph Moray, effete book critic and Maurinette’s squeeze; Sybil Sarta, the laughably unqualified, catty arts editor; and Kimmie Wrigley, the pretentious lefty rich girl whose murder sets the plot in motion.
Girl Detectives’ protagonist is Pill Dombrowski, Chiculture’s grouchy, alcoholic copyeditor and, along with Maurinette Meede, one of the suspects in Kimmie’s murder. Most of the book’s laughs come from Pill’s clashes with everyone else around her her pretentious, phony colleagues, her useless leech of a brother, and the bumbling private eye Edgar Roger, hired by Kimmie’s parents to investigate her death. I suspect Sterzinger based Pill on herself, based on Pill’s position as copyeditor, her noticeably non-WASP, difficult-to-pronounce surname, and the fact that both of them are from Wisconsin.
So, all good so far. So what’s wrong with Girl Detectives?
Simply put, the book lacks bite. While it’s hilarious and gripping, the book doesn’t have the spark that NVSQVAM (Nowhere) and The Talkative Corpse do. Sterzinger plays with and subverts the tropes of detective fiction throughout the book, but her work never seems to rise above the level of pastiche. While Girl Detectives is roughly the same length as NVSQVAM, a lot of it (particularly in the opening chapters) feels like filler; more than once, I had to hold back the urge to jam my ’s touch screen to skip to the next chapter. Additionally, while Sterzinger weaves a fairly intricate plot, the ending doesn’t hit you with any kind of oomph; the book just sort of grinds to a halt.
Put simply, reading Girl Detectives after NVSQVAM and The Talkative Corpse is like listening to the EPs My Bloody Valentine released with Paul Conway after listening to Loveless.
This is not to bash the book; for all its flaws, Girl Detectives is still a gripping and hilarious read. If you haven’t read any of Sterzinger’s other books, read this first. If you have read her other novels, go into Girl Detectives with an open mind. Nobody ever hit a home run the first time they got up to bat.
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