I enjoy reading mysteries and have enjoyed reading stories set in the 1920s ever since I read F. Scott Fitzgerald. So it was easy to pick Marva Dale’s “Death of a Flapper” as my next read.
The story takes place in the 1920s and involves a private detective (JC Brogan) who is hired to find out what happened to a missing young girl, Arabella Germain (nickname Angel). The investigation leads him to other flappers, mobsters, an artist, and a high-society crowd who mostly enjoy parties. The author takes us to speakeasies and jazz clubs, introduces us to bootleggers, and weaves an intricate web of lies, cover-ups, violence, and romance.
Marva Dale, via JC Grogan, takes us through a list of suspects who know something about Angel’s disappearance and death and carefully leads the reader to the final reveal of who really did it. This is such an enjoyable read that I am going to look at other Marva Dale books to put on my future reading list.
“Death of a Flapper” is the work of multigenre author Debra McReynolds, who writes under two pseudonyms depending on the type of fiction she’s creating: Marva Dale for her intriguing and adventurous mysteries and Deborah Merrell for her tantalizing romance novels.
And so the name of Marva Dale will be found as the author of the Death by the Decade mystery series which includes her most recent The death of a flapper.
Some of the other popular novels written by McReynolds include Far From Eden: New World Part I of the Traynor Family Saga, The Snow Job, Babykins, Miami Spice, Babes In Arms: The Bomb Girls of Company B, Private Eyes, Naked Pizza, Under Cover Girl, Hot Pursuits, Angie’s Kiss Y pleasure cruise.
Retired from the public relations field, McReynolds now devotes her free time to her passion for writing. “She used to fill my school notebooks with stories,” relates Debra, “and then add artwork to go with it. My second grade teacher, Mrs. Daley, predicted that she would one day be a writer.” And she has done so.