Book Review - J.J. Murphy's A Friendly Game of Murder
A Friendly Game of Murder by J.J. Murphy
Published by: Signet
Publication Date: January 1st, 2013
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 336 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
The Algonquin is having their big New Year's Eve Party. Up in the penthouse Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford are giving the party of the season. Down in the lobby Dorothy is waiting for Benchley to arrive so that perhaps she might have the forbidden midnight kiss she has dreamed of. Though things go a little south when the hotel is put under quarantine... they can party, but they can't leave. Which is not a problem for the residents like Dorothy or the guests, so long as the booze holds out. When the new Broadway sensation Bibi Bibelot decides to make a bit of a spectacle, in nothing but her birthday suit and some bubbly, tensions become high, and heated for many of the young bucks. When Bibi turns up dead, things go from bad to worse. But with her wit and her friends by her side, Dorothy knows she can solve this mystery before the quarantine is lifted, it doesn't hurt that she has the creator of Sherlock Holmes on hand to help her. Though he might need some friendly coercion. Of course she does have to figure out how to kill Alexander Woollcott before the night is out... sadly that crime is only in fun, being "a friendly game of murder."
In the previous two installments, the characters have been boozing it up and running hither and yon and, while always a great read, all that toing and froing can be a little tiring. So having them locked in the Algonquin was a nice respite from all that rushing about greater Manhattan. Yet this means we are now working within that greatest of detective tropes, the locked room mystery. Does J.J. settle there? No! He one-ups that and makes the murder a locked room in a locked room, the Agatha Christie fan in me did a double squeal of joy, followed by a polite throat clearing in the manner of Poirot. There is also the method of murder being not apparently obvious, so the suspect is not obvious, therefore the how comes before the who. I'm just giddy now. As for the "guest stars" who wouldn't be over the moon with Arthur Conan Doyle becoming a reluctant sleuth? I love how Dorothy tries to draw him into their world of fun and games, but the stoic Doyle with his walrus moustache tries to stay apart from the rabble... an endeavour that is bound to fail when Dorothy's involved! Yet nothing warmed the cockles of my heart more than Doyle being all blustery and Woolcott being all blustery and having at each other... the denouement of their butting heads is hilarious. Then there is the game of "murder." I think it's spiffing that J.J. used a game that the members of the Round Table actually played and was able to use this as a framing device for the novel, as well as a wonderful title.
Hair of the Dog by J.J. Murphy
Dorothy Parker is easily the most quoted American author known for her caustic wit and sharp tongue. An American Oscar Wilde, if you will. She had the brains and the bite. Dorothy Rothschild, not those Rothschilds, was born in New Jersey but quickly whisked back to New York, so as she could be a true New Yorker. Once her mother died her relationship with her father was contentious until his death when she was twenty. A year later she sold her first poem to Vanity Fair, a magazine she would eventually work at after a two year stint at Vogue. In fact she'd bounce around the various New York publications, from The New Yorker to Esquire and all those in between, for many years, though it was her work as the theatre critic for Vanity Fair, where she was filling in for P.G. Wodehouse when he was on vacation, that made her career take off. This time in her life was centered around her lunches at the Algonquin Round Table. She held her own as one of the few women at a table of (almost) equally smart and wisecracking male colleagues.
If you pay any attention to the cozy genre you'll have seen an adjacent subgenre that's been making itself more and more prominent in recent years, the famous author as sleuth. Yes, there are more "literary" ambitions thrown in like 
"It occurs to me that there are other towns. It occurs to me so
violently that I say, at intervals, "Very well, if New York is going to
be like this, I'm going to live somewhere else." And I do — that's the
funny part of it. But then one day there comes to me the sharp picture
of New York at its best, on a shiny blue-and-white Autumn day with its
buildings cut diagonally in halves of light and shadow, with its
straight neat avenues colored with quick throngs, like confetti in a
breeze. Some one, and I wish it had been I, has said that "Autumn is the
Springtime of big cities." I see New York at holiday time, always in
the late afternoon, under a Maxfield Parish sky, with the crowds even
more quick and nervous but even more good-natured, the dark groups
splashed with the white of Christmas packages, the lighted holly-strung
shops urging them in to buy more and more. I see it on a Spring morning,
with the clothes of the women as soft and as hopeful as the pretty new
leaves on a few, brave trees. I see it at night, with the low skies red
with the black-flung lights of Broadway, those lights of which
Chesterton — or they told me it was Chesterton — said, "What a marvelous
sight for those who cannot read!" I see it in the rain, I smell the
enchanting odor of wet asphalt, with the empty streets black and shining
as ripe olives. I see it — by this time, I become maudlin with
nostalgia — even with its gray mounds of crusted snow, its little
Appalachians of ice along the pavements. So I go back. And it is always
better than I thought it would be." 
And when you're talking landmarks of Literary New York, there's one place that you have to visit, and that's The Algonquin. The Algonquin is at 59 West 44th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenue, or if you're being pedantic, 5th Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. The hotel's first desk clerk, and eventual owner, Frank Case, fostered the arts and in particular struggling writers creating an environment in which the Round Table, that most vicious of circles, was able to bloom. From 1919 to 1929 
The group first gathered in the Algonquin's Pergola Room (now called The Oak Room) at a long rectangular table. As they increased in number, Algonquin manager Frank Case moved them to the Rose Room and a round table. Initially the group called itself "The Board" and the luncheons "Board meetings." After being assigned a waiter named Luigi, the group re-christened itself "Luigi Board." Finally they became "The Vicious Circle" although "The Round Table" gained wide currency after cartoonist Edmund Duffy of the Brooklyn Eagle caricatured the group sitting at a round table and wearing armor. To join this hallowed group "the price of admission [was] a serpent's tongue and a half-concealed stiletto." 
Despite all the famous writers and celebrities who have lived at The Algonquin over the years I can't help but smile at the hotel's most famous current resident, Matilda the Cat! The tradition of having a cat in the hotel was started by Frank Case after he took in a stray. Though Frank didn't realize what he was starting with that first cat, Hamlet, who was named after that famous Dane by John Barrymore. Since then many a Hamlet and a Matilda have lived there. So go for the cat, stay for the literature! 
As a final note I find it vastly entertaining that the offices of The New Yorker were actually located right across the street from The Algonquin, making Vicious Circle meetings easy to slip out to, but that location must wait for another day. Parker and her cronies where in at the beginning, and instead of starting out on West 44th street, the original offices where in the house of it's founder, Harold Ross and Jane Grant. Located in Hell's Kitchen, at 412 West 47th Street between 9th and 10th Avenue, the little white four story house is still standing, if you care to pay homage to a magazine that has fostered the arts for almost a century. The past and the present merge in New York, to create living history and an experience you won't easily forget if you are lucky enough to visit. 
"There's a reason why they're called the ROARING 20s--there was a flask in anyone's pocket and a song in everyone's heart. Nights were long. Hemlines were short. Jazz was quick, and wits were quicker. The Roaring 20s make for a great getaway, if you're so inclined to make the trip." - J.J. Murphy
