The Gold Gamble

Gold #5

by Herbert Resnicow

Somehow, the show must go on…

Norma Gold and her friend Pearl are co-producing a Broadway revival of Guys and Dolls , with the help of Maxwell Sapphire, who hasn’t had a hit in four years.

Alexander Gold and Burton Hanslik have invested $2.5 million in the show, so Norma and Pearl are under pressure to make it a winner!

There are always problems in the theatre.

And Sapphire is determined for his mistress, Lisa Terrane, to star in a role on which rests the whole show…

But Norma and Pearl force him to star an old school friend of Norma’s, Carol Sands, instead, but to placate Sapphire, Lisa Terrane is made Carol’s understudy.

Then, three days before the critics’ preview, Lisa Terrane is found cruelly murdered in her dressing room.

And Carol Sands is the only person on the floor at that time…

Burton persuades Lieutenant Warshafsky to hold off arresting his star until the critics’ preview night.

But it is made very clear that if Alexander Gold can’t solve the case by then, the show will have to close, taking with it Norma’s and Pearl’s dreams and all of Alexander’s and Burton’s money…

The night of the preview Warshafsky suddenly announces that he must arrest Carol at once and Alexander finds himself in a race against time to save Carol, the show, his wife, his money and his pride.

The Gold Gamble is an entertaining thriller with as much humour as suspense.

Genres: Mystery

248 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Herbert Resnicow was a civil engineer, earning his degree at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, who made a drastic career move at the age of 60 – when his first detective novel, The Gold Solution (1983), landed him a nomination for an Edgar statuette in the category Best First Novel. Resnicow was unable to secure the coveted price, but the tone was set and he wrote a score of classically-styled whodunits in the succeeding decade, featuring the wise-cracking behemoths Alexander and Norma Gold or the entrepreneur Ed Bear and his philosopher son Warren, as well as outsourcing his talent to abet Edward I. Koch and Pelé with their literary aspirations.

In spite of these accolades, Herbert Resnicow has evanesced from popular view and virtually nothing is known about his life – at least not online. Nearly every scrap of personal information I have on him was culled from his obituary, which also mentioned that he served overseas with the Army Corps of Engineers during WWII and left behind a wife, four children and four grandchildren, but a synopsis or review of one his detective stories were even harder to find before I took up his cause. This makes me feel at times as if I'm the only who cares and appreciates this neglected, modern-day practitioner of the locked room mystery who did his part in continuing a fine old tradition that is worth preserving.

Reviews

[Ruth Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes, it was written by my father, so I am unable to give it a review. But do read the blurb and decide for yourself whether it's a book you might like to read.

I will add that Dad made sure that the reader was given all the clues that the detectives had -- no red herrings -- so one could solve the mystery along with them.

[Ralph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Herbert Resnicow can always be depended upon to turn in a good, solid mystery, with interesting characters tossed into dire straits, a well-developed background, a few red herrings strewn about for flavor and an ending where everything is tired up in a generally satisfactory manner. This is exactly what he delivers in The Gold Gamble, and yet...

Reading this book was like eating an oft-prepared favorite food. It tastes great, and yet... Is an ingredient missing? Has something extra been tossed into the mix? The flavor is there, and yet...it's just not quite right.

Had I not the other books in the "Gold" series with which to compare this story, it would be excellent, certainly deserving of another star in the rating, but that is the drawback in any mystery series...the writer is not just competing against other mysteries, but against himself, and that is a tough act to follow.

While the theater background is well developed (and who could not help but love a revival of "Guys & Dolls"?) the involvement of Amazonian Norma Gold and her diminutive friend Pearl as co-producers seemed a bit forced. And perhaps the murder-at-the-theater shtick has been done a few too many times for any surprises to be pulled on the reader. The producer, the director, the star...the demand of the storyline is that all these characters play their proscribed roles and while we might think we want someone to "break out of the box" and go beyond the genre, we really don't because we have our fixed expectations of the theater. And, so, while the book is very satisfying and extremely readable, it fails to break away from its form and thus fails to excel.

[Ann Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great entertainment

Nicely done...a mystery with humor, great characters, interesting storytelling in the first person. I enjoyed the simplicity of the story and the complexity of figuring out who done it!

[Patty · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good story mostly set back stage during a production of Guys and Dolls. However, it needed that gimmick as the story did not have the same zing as others in the series.