Puzzle for Wantons

Google asked me, "Did you mean to search for PUZZLE FOR WON-TONS?" But this is the book I meant, for I've just finished reading this book after three months of failing to bull it through. It actually doesn't have that many wantons, but it does have six juicy women's parts, and the book is divided into six sections, each named after one of these leading ladies. I guess the worst wanton is Dorothy Flanders, a conniving noir vamp who ran through her husband's money while he was overseas getting his legs shot off, then when he comes back home to San Francisco he finds himself the prey of creditors, alone, deserted, while she plays high society games with any man who suits her fancy. Evil from head to toe! "In a couple of years she'd thrown away every red cent I'd ever put by. And that was just chicken feed to her. God knows how much more she'd chiseled out of a;; the men in Frisco she let make her." Strong words for 1945! Then there was Janet Lugano, an American woman married to a cheating Italian count--we discover he probably isn't a count. Janet doesn't have much personality but she meets with a spectacular demise, in a shimmering silver bathing suit in a darkened pool with all her friends gathered around her. Fleur Wyckoff is like the Joan Fontaine character in THE WOMEN--sorry she's obtaining a divorce from her stuffy doctor husband. Indeed, Clare Boothe Luce, who wrote THE WOMEN, should have been getting royalties from ths book since practically everything in it is a steal from her play, right down to the Reno setting and the picture of the divorcing women playing up to the cowboys at the dude ranch. Who else? There's Mimi Burnett, a sentimental gold-digger who carries around with her a suspicious copy of the Selected Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, making eyes at "Lover" French, an older man she THINKS has money. The joke will shortly be on her! Lorraine Pleygel is the world's richest woman and, if not exactly a beauty, she has a lot of joie de vivre, if not overburdened with brains or sensitivity. She's fallen--hard--for Chuck Dawson, a cowboy mogul who owns a blackjack casino in Reno. Finally there is the one and only Iris Duluth, Quentin's regular series character, here probably at the peak of her form. Iris drives Peter to despair with her insistence that she's as good a detective as he is--but it's true as he has to admit--plus she is still one of America's most famous and glamorous movie stars, rather like a homegrown Hedy Lamarr in looks. She and Peter have a great time in this book, for while every other couple is quarreling, divorcing, feuding or just plain cheating on each other, Iris and Peter still have the perfect marriage. Alas it will all come tumbling down just two books from now . . . in the saddest book ever written PUZZLE FOR PILGRIMS. The story is, frankly, unbelievable, and Quentin has one or two twists at the end that you just hoot at, they're so contrived. So--no five stars for you, WANTONS.

the Playgel mansion was an insane Shangri-la with a spectacular view of Lake Tahoe. The guest list included cowboy casino owner, a voluptuous blonde man-eater, a countess, the wife of a distinguished heart specialist, and of course, Peter Duluth and his movie actress wife, Iris. Then their fabulously rich and wanton hostess, Lorraine Pleygel, had an absolutely splendid idea...since three of her house guests were in Reno to get divorced, why not invite the discarded spouses for a reconciliation? A poisoning, a drowning, and a bash in the head later, Peter and Iris found themselves searching for a killer who took "till death us do part" rather literally.