Genre: YA Mystery
Published: May 12, 2020
Pages: 368
A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue meets Miss Fisher's Murder Mystery in this rollicking romp of truth, lies, and troubled pasts.
New Year's Eve, 1929.
Millie is running the show at the Cloak & Dagger, a swinging speakeasy in the French Quarter, while her aunt is out of town. The new year is just around the corner, and all of New Orleans is out to celebrate, but even wealthy partiers' diamond earrings can't outshine the real star of the night: the boy in the red dress. Marion is the club's star performer and his fans are legion--if mostly underground.
When a young socialite wielding a photograph of Marion starts asking questions, Millie wonders if she's just another fan. But then her body is found crumpled in the courtyard, dead from an apparent fall off the club's balcony, and all signs point to Marion as the murderer. Millie knows he's innocent, but local detectives aren't so easily convinced.
As she chases clues that lead to cemeteries and dead ends, Millie's attention is divided between the wry and beautiful Olive, a waitress at the Cloak & Dagger, and Bennie, the charming bootlegger who's offered to help her solve the case. The clock is ticking for the fugitive Marion, but the truth of who the killer is might be closer than Millie thinks.
New Year's Eve, 1929.
Millie is running the show at the Cloak & Dagger, a swinging speakeasy in the French Quarter, while her aunt is out of town. The new year is just around the corner, and all of New Orleans is out to celebrate, but even wealthy partiers' diamond earrings can't outshine the real star of the night: the boy in the red dress. Marion is the club's star performer and his fans are legion--if mostly underground.
When a young socialite wielding a photograph of Marion starts asking questions, Millie wonders if she's just another fan. But then her body is found crumpled in the courtyard, dead from an apparent fall off the club's balcony, and all signs point to Marion as the murderer. Millie knows he's innocent, but local detectives aren't so easily convinced.
As she chases clues that lead to cemeteries and dead ends, Millie's attention is divided between the wry and beautiful Olive, a waitress at the Cloak & Dagger, and Bennie, the charming bootlegger who's offered to help her solve the case. The clock is ticking for the fugitive Marion, but the truth of who the killer is might be closer than Millie thinks.
I had an audiobook copy of this book through Audiofile Magazine's summer reading program (which no longer exists, and that makes me sad). This is my honest review.
Based on the title and cover of this book, I was expecting an LGBTQ+ story. I wasn't expecting it to be set in a prohibition era speakeasy (because I apparently didn't look that closely at the cover). I also wasn't expecting it to be a murder-mystery (again, didn't look that closely at the cover and I basically never read book synopses). I was surprised at how invested I was in the adventure to exonerate Marion. The twists and turns in the story as Millie hunts for the killer were varied and fairly unexpected.
For the most part, I didn't figure out any of the clues until just before Millie did, although the story was fairly quick paced so there wasn't really much time between finding the clues and figuring out where they were pointing.
The narration was almost monotonous, but in a good way. Kind of a just the facts sort of accounting. Emotion was absolutely used for dialogue, but the exposition was largely inflectionless. It really helped set the mood of a crime noir type story. Overall I give The Boy in the Red Dress 3.9724 out of 5 stars. - Katie
Kristin Lambert studied journalism and creative writing at the University of Alabama and eventually joined the family costume business, making Halloween both her favorite and least favorite time of year. She adores live music, red shoes, David Bowie vibes, and semi-excessive thrift store shopping, which her husband and two daughters tolerate, even when she brings home creepy old dolls. The Boy in the Red Dress is her debut novel, set in her favorite city, New Orleans.
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