cover image The Gold Gamble

The Gold Gamble

Herbert Resnicow. St. Martin's Press, $0 (248pp) ISBN 978-0-312-02215-0

Tall and talkative Norma Gold lives with her squat and prodigiously intelligent husband Alexander on Manhattan's Upper West Side, from which they foray to solve mysteries ( The Gold Curse and The Gold Solution , etc.). This time their case is tied to the revival of Guys and Dolls that Norma and her friend Pearl are co-producing, along with Maxwell Sapphire. When Sapphire's mistresswhose bit part in the production matches neither her aspirations nor her abilitiesis found murdered in a dressing room, the prime suspect is Carol Sands, whose leading role the victim has understudied and whose life she has made miserable. Norma persuades the police to give her and Alexander three days to find the murderer before arresting Carol and forcing the play to close in previews. The suspense over the play's fate is tied to the Golds' various hypotheses about who else had motive and opportunity to commit the crime. Norma, like some of one's best friends, is compulsively long-winded but entertaining; her chatter and the Broadway setting keep the fairly mundane plot afloat. (October)