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Lindsey & Plum #3
The Bessie Blue Killer
While overseeing a movie about African-American World War II pilots, recently promoted claims adjuster Hobart Lindsey becomes involved in a tricky murder investigation when a body is found in one of the film's vintage airplanes
- GenresMystery
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
About the author
Richard A. Lupoff
219 books39 followersRichard Allen "Dick" Lupoff (born February 21, 1935 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs and has an equally strong interest in H. P. Lovecraft. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1970 he worked in the computer industry.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 27, 2012
Richard (Dick) Lupoff is a writer who I fondly remember from reading some delightful short stories and a couple of novels years ago. Recently I read a non-fiction book (“The Comic-Book Book”) that he was co-editor of and a contributor to. I then looked around to see what was available in book-length form. One thing that caught my eye was a series of detective novels that I knew I had not read before.
“The Something- Something Killer” series revolves around a pair of protagonists plus their friends and family. The main plot of every story involves one or more deaths and/or property destruction, but each book also deliberately advances the lives of the central characters in ways that many authors will avoid. Rather than worry that he will alienate readers who are happy with the status quo Mr. Lupoff gives them realistic lives with the ups and downs of the normal universe.
Each mystery delves into a particular topic in great-to-moderate depth (for a fictional story that is). In this regard this series reminds me of the “The Burglar who…” series by Lawrence Block. The “Killer” series may have started a few years after the “Burglar” series so perhaps there was some recognition that trivia sells books out in the commercial market. No matter how this series got started it is a well-written, well-researched and enjoyable work of fiction. More on that later.
I enjoyed reading “The Bessie Blue Killer”. I liked it and as I often do for books that I get “interested” in, set aside extra time to push on. I won’t reveal too much about the actual plot, but the investigation centers around some old WWII planes, a movie being made about the Tuskegee Airmen, and some deaths that occurred both in WWII and the present. If you know of the Tuskegee Airmen then the point that ties all of this together is that they trained in California after VE-day (Victory Europe) to fly B-17s over targets in the Pacific theater, but were never deployed. “Bessie Blue” is the name of the B-17 that one of the central characters flew (about whom this film is being made).
This is the third book in the series as my library did not have copies of the first two books (“The Comic Book Killer” and “The Classic Car Killer”) available. So perhaps the formula had been shaken out and settled in the earlier works. I was very pleased with this one except for a couple of jarring notes.
As a “whodunit” mystery it is in the interesting, but not excruciatingly difficult range. Mr. Lupoff doesn’t hide away some obscure tidbit or observation that the reader is intended to miss (unlike some other authors). The facts are fairly presented and the clues are available to arrive at the solution. In this book, a couple of the important plot turns were fairly evident to me several pages ahead of the script. But that is just how the book is styled and it doesn’t detract (much) from the quality of the book or the pleasure in reading it.
I am rating this book fairly high (“4”) on its writing, plots, and characterizations. Even if I factored in a couple of gripes (see below) I would give it at least a “3.5”. If you enjoy mystery fiction and like well-conceived and executed books, then I strongly recommend this book and this series.
Now for my two complaints. These are not spoilers per se, but they do discuss a couple of real-world facts in the text. I don’t think I am giving anything away by discussing them in such a narrow scope, but you have been forewarned. I only spotted these because I remember the correct facts and I reacted to reading the false facts. The funny thing is that Mr. Lupoff is old enough to have lived through both of the true events, so I would have expected him to have caught these errors even if the editors did not.
Gripe Number 1:
In one place, the characters are discussing a real-world explosion that occurred in a Naval Port on July 17, 1944. They claim it had a yield of about “10 million tons of TNT”. I have not looked this up, so I will assume that this fact is correct. But then they go on to compare it to the Atomic Bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The error is that they claim the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of about double (i.e. 20 megatons) and that is just plain wrong. No Atomic bomb (or “A-Bomb” as they were called) had a yield of any number of megatons. Rather, they had yields in the thousands of tons of TNT (“kiloton”) range. The Hiroshima bomb has been estimated at about 16-20 kilotons, not megatons. (The Nagasaki bomb was of similar yield.) It wasn’t until the Hydrogen bomb (or “super”) that yields went up into the range of megatons. A-bombs work by fission, H-bombs work by fusion. (Note that an “A-bomb” is set off to initiate the fusion reaction that creates the secondary, larger yield.)
Gripe Number 2:
On later page, the main character finds an old videotape on TV that shows the US Mens Ice Hockey Team beating the USSR in the Olympic finals. Now, most people (and I) recall the “miracle on ice” victory in 1980 (or they know about it after the last winter Olympics when the US lost to the Canadian team, from all the commentary chatter). But fewer people know that the US also won the gold medal back in the early 60s – also beating the USSR (1960, Squaw Valley). So, what is the problem? The program shows the US team beating the Soviets in an “unlikely win” in 1972 and the character wonders what happened to the Soviet coach and players. Nope, did not happen. Wrong year.
“The Something- Something Killer” series revolves around a pair of protagonists plus their friends and family. The main plot of every story involves one or more deaths and/or property destruction, but each book also deliberately advances the lives of the central characters in ways that many authors will avoid. Rather than worry that he will alienate readers who are happy with the status quo Mr. Lupoff gives them realistic lives with the ups and downs of the normal universe.
Each mystery delves into a particular topic in great-to-moderate depth (for a fictional story that is). In this regard this series reminds me of the “The Burglar who…” series by Lawrence Block. The “Killer” series may have started a few years after the “Burglar” series so perhaps there was some recognition that trivia sells books out in the commercial market. No matter how this series got started it is a well-written, well-researched and enjoyable work of fiction. More on that later.
I enjoyed reading “The Bessie Blue Killer”. I liked it and as I often do for books that I get “interested” in, set aside extra time to push on. I won’t reveal too much about the actual plot, but the investigation centers around some old WWII planes, a movie being made about the Tuskegee Airmen, and some deaths that occurred both in WWII and the present. If you know of the Tuskegee Airmen then the point that ties all of this together is that they trained in California after VE-day (Victory Europe) to fly B-17s over targets in the Pacific theater, but were never deployed. “Bessie Blue” is the name of the B-17 that one of the central characters flew (about whom this film is being made).
This is the third book in the series as my library did not have copies of the first two books (“The Comic Book Killer” and “The Classic Car Killer”) available. So perhaps the formula had been shaken out and settled in the earlier works. I was very pleased with this one except for a couple of jarring notes.
As a “whodunit” mystery it is in the interesting, but not excruciatingly difficult range. Mr. Lupoff doesn’t hide away some obscure tidbit or observation that the reader is intended to miss (unlike some other authors). The facts are fairly presented and the clues are available to arrive at the solution. In this book, a couple of the important plot turns were fairly evident to me several pages ahead of the script. But that is just how the book is styled and it doesn’t detract (much) from the quality of the book or the pleasure in reading it.
I am rating this book fairly high (“4”) on its writing, plots, and characterizations. Even if I factored in a couple of gripes (see below) I would give it at least a “3.5”. If you enjoy mystery fiction and like well-conceived and executed books, then I strongly recommend this book and this series.
Now for my two complaints. These are not spoilers per se, but they do discuss a couple of real-world facts in the text. I don’t think I am giving anything away by discussing them in such a narrow scope, but you have been forewarned. I only spotted these because I remember the correct facts and I reacted to reading the false facts. The funny thing is that Mr. Lupoff is old enough to have lived through both of the true events, so I would have expected him to have caught these errors even if the editors did not.
Gripe Number 1:
In one place, the characters are discussing a real-world explosion that occurred in a Naval Port on July 17, 1944. They claim it had a yield of about “10 million tons of TNT”. I have not looked this up, so I will assume that this fact is correct. But then they go on to compare it to the Atomic Bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. The error is that they claim the Hiroshima bomb had a yield of about double (i.e. 20 megatons) and that is just plain wrong. No Atomic bomb (or “A-Bomb” as they were called) had a yield of any number of megatons. Rather, they had yields in the thousands of tons of TNT (“kiloton”) range. The Hiroshima bomb has been estimated at about 16-20 kilotons, not megatons. (The Nagasaki bomb was of similar yield.) It wasn’t until the Hydrogen bomb (or “super”) that yields went up into the range of megatons. A-bombs work by fission, H-bombs work by fusion. (Note that an “A-bomb” is set off to initiate the fusion reaction that creates the secondary, larger yield.)
Gripe Number 2:
On later page, the main character finds an old videotape on TV that shows the US Mens Ice Hockey Team beating the USSR in the Olympic finals. Now, most people (and I) recall the “miracle on ice” victory in 1980 (or they know about it after the last winter Olympics when the US lost to the Canadian team, from all the commentary chatter). But fewer people know that the US also won the gold medal back in the early 60s – also beating the USSR (1960, Squaw Valley). So, what is the problem? The program shows the US team beating the Soviets in an “unlikely win” in 1972 and the character wonders what happened to the Soviet coach and players. Nope, did not happen. Wrong year.
November 28, 2022
The third book in the Lindsey & Plum series. Entertaining mystery.
April 3, 2016
I really enjoyed this book, it's like an old-fashioned mystery (sort of) updated. I know these were set in the 90s, which doesn't seem all that long ago. I will be reading more by this author.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews