Murder She Encountered

There's a new spunky female character in town. Her name is Biz Adams and she is a photographer for a newspaper. Nothing special, you think, but wait - this is 1939 and Biz is from a Manhattan society family. Her real name is Elizabeth.

In Murder She Encountered by Peg Cochran. Biz and her reporter partner Ralph Kaminsky are off to cover a robbery at the 1939 World's Fair. When they arrive, they encounter policemen dragging a young man away. As they draw closer, they see the body of a woman lying by the side of one of the show swimming pools. She has been strangled with a nylon stocking. This was not they robbery they thought they would be covering.

Biz snaps a photo of the young man and she sees the fear and confusion in his eyes. It seems he was stalking the murdered woman, so when the police found him standing over her with his clothes wet, they arrest him. 

While Biz and Kaminsky are investigating, they discover the dead woman was a

demonstrator at the DuPont pavilion. DuPont has developed a new material called nylon that lasts longer than silk, costs less and can be made into hosiery. The young woman, Flo Grimm, was one of the many young women desperate for jobs at the World's Fair. 

The more they dig into Flo's past, the more they uncover something rotten going on at the Fair. Then someone else is murdered and Biz digs deeper finding herself in jeopardy.

This series is new to me even though there are two other books in the series, but I loved it. A fast-paced historical mystery with Biz Adams, a woman ahead of her time.