Leslie Ford was a very lady-like writer, but this is her take on the tough-guy hardboiled mystery that was so popular in the 1950s. When men were men and said things like, "Get that dame out of here!" Hilarious.

Bad rich girl Connie Maynard was engaged to Gus Blake, but she left him for what she thought was a better prospect who turned out to be a big mistake. Divorced and back in her hometown, Connie is disgusted to find Gus married to Janey, a woman Connie contemptuously dismisses as no competition at all. Connie gets her father to persuade Gus to hire her as a reporter on the paper where Gus is the editor. Gus and Connie are together all day and late into the night, covering the news. Janey, pushed aside, takes up gambling on slot machines with disastrous results.

Connie is not as smart as she thinks she is, and Janey is not as stupid as she acts in the first part of the book. Both of them smarten up a lot as the story progresses.

A meek little non-entity of a man named Doc Wernitz, who supplies juke boxes and slot machines to the tarnished little town of Smithville, is bludgeoned to death one night in the basement of his house. Connie and Gus go to cover the murder for the paper, and Janey, left alone again, contemplates suicide over her disintegrating marriage and her gambling debts. Then someone breaks into the house. Janey snaps out of it and starts fighting back, against Connie, against Gus, and against the unknown killer who is threatening her and her daughter.

A great snapshot of 1950s life, well worth the 25 cent cover price of this edition, or the $10 or so I gave Abebooks for it this year. Loved it! ( )

Murder is the Pay-Off is one of Leslie Ford's one-shots. It's written in third person. I wasn't up to chapter three before I was torn over which of three characters I'd most want to be the murder victim: Connie Maynard, her father, John Maynard, or John's sister, Mamie Maynard Syms.

Connie wants to break up Gus Blake's marriage so she can have him, even though she jilted him to marry the man she's divorced. John Maynard is a lawyer who puts on an act to fool people. (I've quoted a description of John from the first chapter.) Mamie Maynard Syms is the probable reason that poor Nelson Syms has ulcers that put him in the hospital a couple of times a year. Check out chapter two for how high Mamie has promoted her husband's ancestor who fought against Cornwallis. Mamie has convinced herself that champagne isn't booze. She can't understand why she has such a nasty headache the morning after a champagne night. Mamie is against slot machines, so it's a good thing that she doesn't go down to her brother's play room in what used to be the cellar.

Connie is beautiful. She doesn't think that Gus' wife, Janey, is even pretty, let alone intelligent. She can't understand why Janey is so popular. Perhaps if Connie had a nice, unselfish bone in her body she might be able to figure it out.

There's trouble brewing in Smithville. 'Doc' Wernitz, who operates the Smithville Recreation Company, Inc., is leaving. His slot machines are a money-maker for the town, but more than one citizen owes him money. Janey Blake is horrified to realize that she's written checks for a thousand dollars in the six months that Connie's been back in town and trying to steal her husband. Janey has completely wiped out their savings and then some. How will she ever tell Gus?

It doesn't help that Gus is the editor of the local paper and Connie got her father to convince Gus to hire her. Gus and Connie are both out at the scene of the murder the night someone breaks in the Blake home. Janey is all alone with her two-and-a-half year-old daughter, Jane. Janey may be scared, but she won't let anyone frighten her baby. I loved what the cop who came to the Blake home thought about Janey in chapter 7.

Ms. Ford gives readers a bit of information from the killer's point of view, but has several suspects do the same thing so we still get to guess. It was interesting finding out what the plan had been and what mistakes were made before the last chapter rolls around.

Several characters put two and two together and come up with seven, not to mention rousing needless suspicion. One of the the very wrong conclusions leaves Connie and the city editor to get the paper out. Connie is so very proud of her editorial decisions -- right up to the point her father called her 'Constance,' something he hasn't done in years. By the time her daddy gets through with her, Connie's pride is dragging in the dust. Hurrah! It's almost as much fun as Connie and Gus's big fight in chapter 20.

The Connie-Gus-Janey triangle reminds me of the Courtney-Cass-Molly triangle in Ms. Ford's earlier mystery, All For the Love of a Lady, but there are differences, especially since there's no first-person Grace Latham as the filter through which we get our information. I happen to like the way the triangle was resolved in this book much better than in the other.

There may be some readers who will consider this book dated. The racist terms and sexist attitudes are no fun to read, but they do allow us to see how far we've come. I enjoyed Connie's surprise at discovering that someone still chews tobacco in 1951. We still have people who talk in cliches, such as the County Attorney. I chuckled at what the Chief of the County Constabulary said about those cliches in chapter 5. There will always be people who like to throw their weight around and people who think they're much smarter than anyone else. If you know about the 'man cave', you might smile at Mrs. Ferguson's complaint in chapter 9. On the other hand, Janey Blake thinks the town baker is mean because he won't let his employees smoke inside the bakery.

All in all, this is a fun little cozy. ( )