See the Mystery Review Crew’s review of Devils in Paradise by A.D. Price.
Devils in Paradise: Crime Never Sleeps in the City of Angels
Author: A.D. Price
Genre: Thriller, Crime Fiction
1946
Los Angeles has become ground zero in America’s anti-Red crusade. The war may have ended, but there are still battles to fight.
When Private Investigator’s Kit Comfort and Henry Richman are hired to track down a stolen Jules Verne first edition for magazine publisher Dreiland, they are startled to discover that homicidal traitors and Russian spies are also on the hunt.
Finding the Verne means finding Marlene, the brilliant former Army code-breaker who stole the book and is now in hiding.
Kit and Henry’s competitors are deadly serious about reaching Marlene first, and as dangers and betrayals pile up, the detectives race to unravel secrets and decode the Verne connections.
In the struggle to find Marlene and prevent the enemy’s escape, the investigators will be tested like never before.
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Review of Devils in Paradise
Devils in Paradise is a private eye story glamorously set in 1940s Los Angeles. Despite occurring about a year after the end of World War II, there are enough Nazi remnants included to add an element of suspense to the classic P.I. noir.
The primary story follows an investigation by Kit Comfort, owner of Comfort and Company Private Investigators, for a new client—Donald Dreiland, Editor in Chief of True Investigations magazine. With her P.I. colleague—Henry Richman—Kit was tasked with finding a first edition of a Jules Verne novel that disappeared from Donald’s office around the same time Marlene— a new employee—also disappeared.
Kit’s search shines some light on the small world of rare books, including the involvement of high-ranking members of the Nazi party to secure first editions of certain titles or authors. As the search grinds away, Kit decides that there is more to this story than what she was initially told by her client. An element of danger begins to overshadow the case.
This book has an unusually large number of significant characters. Further, not all the characters seem to be involved in Kit’s case. There are several subplots unrelated to the main story. For example, Kit’s brother and his therapist—Kit’s current love interest—add unrelated elements to the story.
Another example of these other storylines is a novella being written by Kit’s client, Donald. Periodically, the author will drop in an entire chapter of the novella in italics as a separate chapter in the story. Although the author does seem to bring the novella into the main story, it isn’t until near the end that this happens, and it really doesn’t seem to add anything significant to the main story.
With so many subplots, we were a third of the way through the book before we were sure what the main story was. Overall, the subplots were distracting, and the number of characters made it difficult to remember who everyone was and which storyline they belonged to. Further, the inclusion of these subplots had a negative impact on the overall pacing of the book.
The author did a good job with regular description. For example,
“Then, as though cued off-stage, the wind let loose with its fiercest gales yet. Wave after wave of hurricane-level wind battered the sides of the house. Tree limbs, bowed by the wind’s force, scraped the roof and tapped at the windows. More metal trash cans took flight, crashing and bouncing down the street.”
The era this story is set in had its own vernacular, particularly with private eye offerings. The author sparingly uses those bygone words. Thus, the few words the author does include seem forced and unnatural for the character saying them.
Organizationally, the story is told in the third-person narrative, except for the character of Marlene, which is told in the first person. However, chunks of text—some within the same chapter—are prefaced with a character’s name to indicate the point of view of that section. Although that may sound as if it could be confusing, it wasn’t, and it seemed to work well.
The epilogue brings the story to a nice close, with separate sections for most of the significant characters.
About The Author of Devils in Paradise, A.D. Price
A native of Washington, D. C., A. D. Price is an Emmy-winning screenwriter and author. Her publications (as Amy Dunkleberger) include educational books and feature articles on historical and arts-related subjects. In 2022, she published After the Blue, Blue Rain, her first novel and the first book in her Comfort & Company mystery series. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and faithful pooch.
