Angels Flight by Alice Duncan *****
1920s. Mercy Allcutt (not Alcott) moved to L A to escape her straight-laced Bostonian family. She was happy as P I Ernie Templeton’s secretary until her mother showed up. Over the objections of her mother and her boss, she investigates two murders.
Her proper, upper-class mother objects to Mercy working. “You’re taking a job away from someone who needs it.” Regardless, when her boss refuses to help Francis Easthope, whose mother is being scammed by a couple of spiritualists, Mercy takes the case and attends the séance where gossip columnist Hedda Heartwood is murdered. Her boss and Detective Phillip Bigelow warn her away from the case, but she persists.
Throughout the book, her mother and the men try to guide her away from danger and independence. “You’d probably be a dead duck right now,” Ernie growled. “I would not be a dead duck, Ernest Templeton! I saved myself from being shot by being quick and resourceful, curse you! You sure as anything didn’t rescue me! I was already rescued!”
There are plenty of historical references, such as candlestick phones, drop waist dresses, the death of Rudolph Valentino, and the scandal with Fatty Arbuckle. The plot concerns the movie industry (the flickers), actresses being discovered, sexual harassment, and “blue movies.”
The title refers to the historic narrow-gauge funicular railway in the Bunker Hill district of Downtown Los Angeles, California.
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