Dangerous Lady by Octavus Roy Cohen

She was the only one present at three different murders—yet claimed she was innocent.

Scott Henderson falls in love with Gail Barrie at first sight, across the floor of the country club. She had just returned from spending the past sixteen years in Havana, after her father passed away. Scott is a partner with Frank Matthews in a firm that controls the family fortune she will inherit in just days when she turns twenty-one. Thinking he doesn't have a chance as Gail talks with handsome Tony Kincaid, she surprises Scott by asking for a drive to visit her childhood friend. As he parks the car, she enters the home and screams, for Doris has been shot dead in the foyer. The only person around is Gail, and she's not saying a word.

Scott's buddy Bernie is the detective assigned to the case, and they work together. Frank Matthews returns home early from a business trip and is shot dead. Again, Gail was alone with him but has now disappeared. Word spreads that Gail has secretly married the handsome Tony—when she phones Scott in a panic—Tony has also been murdered. She has no explanations, and this is just the start of a web of deceit and lies.

This clever mystery is packed with twists and great characters (with several side plots I've not touched on), leading up to a finale I really didn't see coming. The pace is strong, and the lady is dangerous.

Octavus Roy Cohen wrote several detective series but began writing popular 'ethnic-comedies' for The Saturday Evening Post featuring African American characters, notably a bumbling detective named 'Florian Slappey', one of the first black private eyes. They were such a hit that stage plays and films were made in the 1920s, although today they are so unflattering as to be unreadable. In Dangerous Lady there is a butler, Leander, and a cook, Oleander, who, despite being respected as part of the family, are portrayed using a minstrelsy 'blackface dialect' that is difficult to read today. When Scott compliments Oleander on her delicious cooking, Leander replies, "Sho' Lawd, Mistah Scott. Us be savin' our points jes' fo' this. They ain't no such thing as too much eatments." Embarrassing, but I would rather read the original text than an edited version.

1946 / Hardcover / 240 pages