Lynn Sheridan is young, talented and in love, with an up-and-coming job at an advertising agency. Everything seems to be going her way -- until the police arrive at her apartment on a murder call. This one is a hoax, but other hoaxes follow, and soon the long-suffering NYPD Lieutenant Max Gold finds himself with a screwball homicide on his hands. Other investigators want in on the act too -- the ex-con janitor, Lew Murray; the wayward Nita Gordon -- but it is Alan Gordon, Lynn's fiance, who pulls the final rabbit out of the hat. Stylish, well-written and short enough (191 pages) to make up for the slight overtones of schmaltz.
Cohen's books are hard to find these days, but on the evidence of this one he seems to have resisted the trend towards hard-boiled PIs and chosen to work in the same semi-realistic procedural vein as the Lockridges and Erle Stanley Gardner. Clues are sparse but fair and the characters are engaging. Max Gold isn't given quite enough to do, but the book is well worth reading.
Jon.
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