Never having read anything by Eaton K. Glodthwaite before, I did a little googling. I found this brief personal reminiscence about his military career, written by a friend of his, quite interesting. After reading it, I still had no idea what to expect when I started reading The Sixpenny Dame, but after a few pages I thought I had it pegged. Guy sees really good-looking woman and falls hard for her. Guy learns that she's married. They eventually meet. She lives in a mansion. Guy works in an insurance office. Guy learns that she's trapped in a very unhappy marriage. She tells him how wonderful he is. Sex ensues.[SPOILER ALERT] Nearly everything from here on in as a spoiler, so consider yourself alerted.] This book didn't go in the direction I'd anticipated. Our narrator, Don Martin (Not Mad's maddest artist) is a nice guy, a vet who has a master's in psychology, honest, and not at all interested in killing anyone's husband. The wife, Mildred, doesn't want to kill her husband, either.
That's not to say there's not a lot going on. Mysteries abound, and Mildred isn't entirely forthcoming about her past, much less her present. She tells Don that she loves him, and he never really doubts it, though he does doubt that she's telling him the whole truth about her life.
Just getting to see Mildred is a problem because of her husband's formidable bodyguard, not to mention the even more formidable dobermans that guard the estate. As it happens, Martin's father helped to build the mansion, and Martin locates a secret tunnel into the house. The tunnel is where he stumbles across the skeleton of a murder victim. But who's the victim? And why won't Mildred's husband ever come out of his room? [END OF SPOILER ALERT]
Things get pretty complicated in the end, and Martin spouts off a little too much '50s psychology in the course of things, but I found this book quite entertaining. Goldthwaite has a smooth, readable style, and he knows how to create suspense and interesting characters. I have another couple of his books around, and one of these days I'm going to read one.
10 comments:
The opening description gave me a strong sense of deja vu about a Gold Medal book I read last year (can't remember which), but then I guess a lot of Gold Medals had that plot, didn't they?
Now it's going to drive me nuts until I think of what it was. Thanks a lot, Bill.
Always glad to help.
With a name like that you'd think he'd be a scion of The Four Hundred, or maybe headmaster at an exclusive prep school, not a mystery writer working James M. Cain territory.
A.S.
I wonder if he knew Ellen's favorite, Milton K. Ozaki.
True. Maybe he should have used a pen name.
I thought that WAS a pen name!
/Related to Bobcat "Chuckles the Clown" Goldthwaite?
Nuttin' like a dame, their ain't. And how does one pronounce Goldthwaite? I always lisp on the last "t" too.
I used to live not too many miles from Goldthwait (no "e"), Texas, and I always pronounce the "d" and the "t" when I say it.
Soft TH, if it's like Bobcat's...simply Gold Thwait, inded as if one was lisping a bit. (My Honduran friend who would practice her English on me always found the TH dipthongs the most alien, not being a Spaniard.)
This does sou nd pretty good even despite the Well Of Course You Realize quaint infodumps you suggest lard it a bit...
A secret tunnel? Please. I thought that went out with John Dickson Carr...or maybe Carter Dixon...or perhaps Mary Roberts Rinehart.
(I'm obviously in a bad mood this evening.)
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