“…in Death Was the Other Woman I’m recreating the most classic of classic noir fiction, but from a woman’s perspective.” And the setting is classic noir – Los Angeles California during the late 1920’s. It’s the time of Prohibition; it’s the time of The Great Depression. As Richards says, “These two things together create a cocktail for crime. It’s like leaving raw chicken on the kitchen counter on a hot day. Things grow in that environment. Things you weren’t expecting.”

And you wouldn’t necessarily expect in a gritty mystery that the girl Friday for a PI would be the one to solve the case. But Richard’s sees it another way.

“I spent a chunk of time a few years ago reading a lot of the classics of noir fiction. Hammett’s work from the 1930s. Chandler’s early stuff. Even some Damon Runyon and some Ross Macdonald. And I lifted my head from it realizing that the lifestyle described was completely impossible. The way those guys drank and carried on – especially Hammett’s detectives, and Chandler’s – it was simply not possible for them to have solved any of those cases on their own. Look at them: hitting the hard stuff before noon any day of the week; driving home because they were too drunk to walk. These damaged detectives of noir fiction simply could not have gotten on as advertised. At the same time, most of them have a secretary in the outer office, not saying much onscreen, but respected by her boss. Esteemed. And as I read, I saw these women taking a larger role than the one described by the novelists in question. And I recognize that it’s possible that not even Chandler and Hammett knew what was really going on. But I knew.

So that was the premise. I could see it plain as day. And it’s all right there in Chandler. In Hammett. It’s all right there, between the lines.”

Linda L. Richards is the editor and co-founder of January Magazine and a regular contributor to The Rap Sheet. Mad Money, her first work of long fiction, was nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. Death Was the Other Woman is her hardcover debut.

Mark Combes