Four Lost Ladies

By Stuart Palmer

A woman is murdered in her hotel room -- and she is only the first to die.

With a seven-hundred-dollar inheritance in her pocket, small town librarian Harriet Bascom went to the track. By the time she left she had thousands -- enough to live life the way she had always wanted: with champagne, music, and love. The champagne and music flow freely once she arrives in New York City, but it's love that brings trouble. When she discovers her beloved has a terrible secret, she makes the mistake of being alone when she confronts him about it -- and doesn't even scream when she dies.

Harriet is one of the three thousand women who disappear in New York each year -- the women Hildegarde Withers wants to know more about. Unhappily retired, this former elementary school teacher is hungry for action. Investigating Harriet's case -- and the three other ladies who follow her into death -- will provide all the action Miss Withers could ever want.

Four Lost Ladies is part of the Hildegarde Withers Mysteries series, which also includes The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Head of Zeus
• Release date: Jun 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781784087609

Stuart Palmer

Stuart Palmer (1905–1968) was an American author of mysteries. Born in Baraboo, Wisconsin, Palmer worked a number of odd jobs—including apple picking, journalism, and copywriting—before publishing his first novel, the crime drama Ace of Jades, in 1931. It was with his second novel, however, that he established his writing career: The Penguin Pool Murder introduced Hildegarde Withers, a schoolmarm who, on a field trip to the New York Aquarium, discovers a dead body in the pool. Withers was an immensely popular character, and went on to star in thirteen more novels, including Miss Withers Regrets (1947) and Nipped in the Bud (1951). A master of intricate plotting, Palmer found success writing for Hollywood, where several of his books, including The Penguin Pool Murder, were filmed by RKO Pictures Inc.      

Reviews for Four Lost Ladies

[pamelad_570511 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This is a Hildegarde Withers story. Withers is a retired schoolmistress who investigates crimes and delivers the solutions to her trusted friend Inspector Oscar Piper. Palmer's idea of humour and mine have nothing in common. He wrote, "It would have been well had she given the same warning to Inspector Oscar Piper, for the explosion when it came a few days later found him as unprepared as the hapless inhabitants of Hiroshima." That's disgusting.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hildegard Wthers is a spinster (though in the earlier books, not too old) schoolteacher detective in New York --in this book she is concerned about the disappearance or death of a series of vulnerable women she believes may have been romanced and killed by a man she calls "Mr. Nemo."

[jeffreymarks · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Cute in character, but short on plot. Women have been disappearing from NYC. Not an entirely shocking concept, but Hildy finds 4 of them who have several traits in common, so she decides to investigate. Piper is temporarily removed from Homicide because of Hildy's shenanigans.