Four Lost Ladies by Stuart Palmer review

This was the first Hildegarde Withers I've read, but it won't be the last, I really enjoyed it. I will probably go back to the first one, and start from there.

Four Lost Ladies by Stuart Palmer was published in 1949.  It is the 11th of 18 Hildegarde Withers mysteries.   She is an amateur sleuth, who tries to assist the New York Police Department, in the person of Inspector Oscar Piper, to bring criminals to justice.

Withers, a retired teacher, is at loose ends at the beginning of this story.  She had met Inspector Oscar Piper in an earlier book, developed a friendship with him, and been involved in some previous investigations with him.  However, in this story, he doesn't have much time for her and can't let her get involved in any of his current cases.

Withers becomes concerned about a former neighbor, Alice, who hasn't sent her a Christmas card as she always does.  She mentions to Piper that people can just go missing and no one cares or does anything.  He points out that thousands of women go missing every year, and most of them have their own reasons for doing so, and most often it is not a concern of the police.

Withers then determines to find out about her missing neighbor.  She travels to the neighbor's original hometown to talk to relatives, who haven't heard from her, and don't care--except for the missing woman's namesake and niece, Alice AKA Jeeps, who ends up joining Withers in her investigation.

The investigation leads Withers into discovering other missing women. She believes she has discovered a plot involving a man finding women, romancing them, stealing their money, and killing them.  She proceeds, with the assistance of Jeeps, to try and discover the perpetrator, and what he has done with the bodies.

This was an interesting and exciting story, with a nice feel of a different era, and a different point of view of women.  I recommend this story.



This book fulfills requirement #3  Amateur Night of the Vintage Mystery Challenge 2013

This also fulfills a requirement in the  2013 A to Z challenge.  Title--F and Author--P

And I'm using this book for the Lost and Found category of the 2013 What's In A Name 6 Challenge
read March 2, 2013.