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A review by hannahstohelit
The Corpse Steps Out by Craig Rice
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-paced
4.25
Besides for a chapter of not-well-veiled-enough info-dumping about the main character, which was ALMOST fun enough to justify it but not quite, this was a blast all the way down. There's a part of me that's surprised that I'm giving it a lower score than The Bigger They Come (ESG/AA Fair), but a) that one had a really ingenious gimmick and b) I will never quite be into Jake Justus and Helene Brand, who seem to me to be alcoholics with few real redeeming features, as lead characters. They're basically fine in this case, but I can't really care about them much. Malone, of course, is consistently a quality character but got way too little time in the spotlight.
At a certain point, from a narrative perspective it became kind of obvious who the murderer had to be- there were a lot of twists and turns and eventually there was only one possible twist left. But it was a good and compelling twist so I didn't really care, and the central conceit of bodies appearing and disappearing was great reading. I thankfully didn't really need to remember the plot of Eight Faces at Three to read this one, and I do have the next two books out of the library because I've never gone wrong with Craig Rice so far (I'm a Home Sweet Homicide megafan, no matter what it says about me).
At a certain point, from a narrative perspective it became kind of obvious who the murderer had to be- there were a lot of twists and turns and eventually there was only one possible twist left. But it was a good and compelling twist so I didn't really care, and the central conceit of bodies appearing and disappearing was great reading. I thankfully didn't really need to remember the plot of Eight Faces at Three to read this one, and I do have the next two books out of the library because I've never gone wrong with Craig Rice so far (I'm a Home Sweet Homicide megafan, no matter what it says about me).