In this Golden Age mystery set in post-World War II California, an art student must determine who fits the mold of a killer.
The War is over, but only just, and San Francisco is still crammed with military uniforms. Of course, being San Francisco, it’s also crammed with Bohemians (in a few years, they’ll be known as Beatniks). Noel Bruce straddles both camps: By day she’s a strait-laced driver for the Navy, but at night she lets her hair down and parties with her flamboyant art-school chums. The party comes to a screeching halt, however, when a dead body turns up in a sculptor’s studio, and the artists discover that pretentious mannerisms and amusing facial hair provide little defense against the chill of fear . . .
As in Skeleton Key, the heroine is a working woman, and, like all of Offord’s novels, My True Love Lies provides an intriguing bridge between old-fashioned, 1930s-style plotting and a kind of feminism that feels startlingly up-to-date.
“Mrs. Offord with each book entrenches herself more firmly as one of our leading feminine mystery novelists . . . There is always a reasonable plot backed by warm characters, and above all, intelligent writing.” —Dorothy B. Hughes, author of In a Lonely Place
Lenore Glen Offord (1905-1991) was a writer and critic who wrote mysteries set in and around San Francisco. She was mystery reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle for over thirty years, winning an Edgar award for Outstanding Criticism in 1952. Offord published twelve novels, eight of them mysteries.