Murder on The Streetcar
Alma H. Bond, Ph.D.
(Reviewer - Rebecca Brown)
2004 iUniverse
ISBN: 0595312071

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Dr. Wells & Lt. Franklin investigate the murder of a leading actor on stage during a performance.

In Dr. Bond's second mystery, one of psychotherapist Mary Wells' patient is playing the role of Stella in a new New York production of A Streetcar Named Desire. Cecily gives the doctor tickets to the opening night. Naturally, she invites her favorite NYPD detective, John Franklin to accompany her.

During a rowdy scene on stage, a gun shot echoes through the theater. All in the audience think it's part of the play, until the curtain is suddenly drawn & the stage manager comes out to ask the legendary question: “Is there a doctor in the house?”

& so, life imitates art as the leading man, a womanizer & domineering cad, gets his just desserts at the business end of a pistol.

Lt. Franklin gets the case & after interviewing the cast, both he & Dr. Wells conclude the shooter is among them, which one, however, will take some delving.

Then the ancient, irascible head stagehand is found hanging back stage. It looks like a suicide, yet upon deeper inspection murder surfaces again.

Now, I'm not a fan of A Streetcar, primarily because of the over-the-top emoting that's expected in it. However, I did relish the passion & drama among the members of the cast in Murder on The Streetcar, with their dark & twisted pasts which have come back to haunt them.

Murder on The Streetcar is another elegant & satisfying mystery, with a different pace & language from the dime-a-dozen ones on the shelves. It offers far more in the way of thinking things through. Dr. Bond infuses her stories with humor & insights into the minds of the suspects, & their motives, as she did in The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle

I'm glad Dr. Bond has brought back these two gentle, heroic citizens in a mystery that will linger long after the last page is turned.

More from Dr. Alma Bond:
The Deadly Jigsaw Puzzle
The Tree That Could Fly
On Becoming A Grandparent: A Diary of Family Discovery
Tales Of Psychology
I Married Dr. Jekyll And Woke Up Mrs. Hyde
The Autobiography Of Maria Callas, A Novel
Who Killed Virginia Woolf? A Psychobiography
Profiles of Key West
Dream Portrait: A Study of Nineteen Sequential Dreams As Indicators of Pretermination
America's First Woman Warrior: The Courage of Deborah Sampson
Is There Life After Analysis?
She recently recorded her new manuscript, Old Age Is A Terminal Illness, as an audio book.

To view all this Senior Associate Reviewer's reviews enter her name, Dr. Alma H. Bond, in any Search box on this site.
(02/13/05)

Rebecca