Our last (for now, at least) Cocktail Talk from Craig Rice’s rollicking The Wrong Murder is a short one, but I loved the sentiment contained within it. Who doesn’t need a Martini to chase straight gin? Don’t get so liquored up that you miss The Wrong Murder Cocktail Talk Part I or Part II, to learn more about the book and the amazing author (for that matter, read past Craig Rice Cocktail Talks for even more), as I’m keeping this intro short as a shot.
On the step just below them was a bottle of gin, a shakerful of Martinis, and a few extra glasses, thoughtfully brought along in case of breakage. The Martinis, Helene’s father had explained, were there to be used as a chaser for the gin.
If you thought I was only going to have The Wrong Murder Part I Cocktail Talk on this site, and thereby only having one quote from Craig Rice’s third John J. Malone book, boy were you wrong. I think they’ll be at least one more even than this. Don’t miss the past Craig Rice Cocktail Talks, either, so you can learn more about this neat mid-last-century female crime writer and gadabout. But first, check out the below, where press agent (currently unemployed press agent, that is) Jake Justus (one of our three main characters) and a few others are in need of rum due to his recently-married wife Helen Brand’s wild driving:
As soon as Jake felt that he could turn his head without its falling off his neck, he looked back. The gangster’s car was still following, a little farther behind, but there. Jake decided to take back fifty per cent of everything he had thought about Little Georgie la Cerra. Or at least his driver.
Helene said, “There’s a bottle of Bacardi somewhere in the back seat, in case any of you big, strong me feel faint.”
By the time the bottle had been passed around, her passengers were able to speak again.
The Wrong Murder is the third book in Craig Rice’s John J. Malone series, with Eight Faces at Three being the first and The Corpse Steps Out being the second. I have a couple Eight Faces at Three Cocktail Talks, which I highly suggest you read so you can learn more about the amazing and intriguing Craig Rice (short version: born in 1908, first book 1939, lived an incredible tipsy life, married much – including to a beat poet – was the first crime writer on the cover of Time magazine, was said by a friend to be able to crochet, play chess, read a book, and compose music at the same time all while holding a highball, was very popular, then faded, and now hopefully is making a tiny comeback). But I, for some reason, though I’ve read it, did not have any Cocktail Talks from the second book. Not sure what rock fell on my head! Because I know the main characters were tippling throughout. The main characters being (as in the first book, and the third) press agent Jake Justus, his love, heiress Helen Brand, and defense council John J. Malone. The third book actually starts with the first two getting married, at which celebration a guest bets Jake they can commit a murder without him being able to solve it – the bet prize being a bar the guest owns, which is catnip to Jake, currently out of a job. There’s lots of madcap highjinks, lots of near-death driving by Helen, lots of missed honeymoon plane reservations, lots of Malone bemoaning it all, and lots of drinking. They still love the rye, as in the first two books, and as the below demonstrates.
She frowned. “I need a drink to help me think clearly.”
“Follow me,” Jake said. “I’m a St. Bernard.”
The walked through the softly falling snow down Madison Street to the corner of Wacker Drive, turned south for half a block, and entered a pleasantly noisy, though far from ornate, saloon.
Jake waved Helen to a secluded corner and called, “Two double ryes, quick.”
“Poor Malone,” she said softly, peeling off her gloves. The rye brought a little color back to her cheeks.
Don’t miss our Eight Faces at Three, Part I Cocktail Talk, where you can find out more about the book, about the bubbly 1930-ish author who wrote it (and she was the first crime-y writer to be on the cover of Time, which is just a hook to get you to learn more about her, cause there are stories! She being Craig Rice, that is), about how I was tipped to the book (and hopefully through that towards more books by her) by cocktailian and mystery-ian Vince Keenan, and where you can see another quote from the book. When you read said other quote, and our quote below, don’t think as they both are about drinking-in-cars that I am proposing you go out and drink in a car (unless it’s parked)! Cause I’m not. But they are both such jolly quotes, well, I couldn’t skip them. And the book is a darn jolly (outside of a murder or two) read, fast-paced, tipsy, slapstick-y nearly at times, with a little bit of romance to boot. And lots of rye and bubbly!
“Miss Helene,” said Butch joyously,” you’d never guess what I got under them blankets on the floor.”
Helene investigated.
“Judas!” she said. “Champagne!”
“I thought it seemed sort of appropriate.”
“But no glasses,” she said. “I suppose nobody can think of everything. Just the same, drinking Champagne out of a bottle in a moving car is more than a mere accomplishment.”
I’ll admit freely that I am not a very social-media-y person. Maybe it’s age, maybe inclination, maybe I type too slowly, maybe it’s a curse put on me by an ancient sorcerer, who knows? However, I will say that at least one awesome thing has happened for me via the socials (I’m sure many things, but that’s not as dramatic), and that was when someone on the twitters pointed me towards the author Craig Rice and the book Eight Faces at Three. I believe it was mystery author and cool cocktailer (author of Down the Hatch: One Man’s One Year Odyssey Through Classic Cocktail Recipes and Lore) and noir-ish editor (typing all that out, I’m sorta jealous I’m not him!), Vince Keenan. I didn’t know Rice at all before this pointing, and that was a big failing I’m now happy to say I’ve corrected. Rice (full name something like Georgiana Ann Randolph Craig Rice) lived a bit of a wild, early-to-mid 1900s life, and that’s saying something. Not only married many times (including to a beat poet, of all things), a cocktail and booze-swirler and swigger during some rollicking periods in history, a mystery book writer and ghostwriter, and the first crime-etc. writer to be featured on the cover of Time magazine, when Time was a bigger deal than we can probably really grasp – I mean, that’s huge! – she was also (I as I read when trying to track down more info, and which I loved so much I wanted to type out), described by Bill Ruehlmann as “the Dorothy Parker of detective fiction: she wrote the binge and lived the hangover.” Wowza!
Of course, none of it would matter as much if Eight Faces at Three wasn’t all kinds of fun to read! It starts a wee bit slow, but once murder happens, and a (perhaps wrongly accused?) suspect suspected, and (most of all) said suspect’s pal, the tipsy debutante Helen Brand arrives and decides to solve things with press agent (and also tipsy) Jake Justus, well, the fun starts rolling at speed. They’re accompanied (into bars, cars, and bottles) by defense council John J. Malone, which means this book kicks off the John J. Malone series of Rice books, and while he’s a hoot, I hope in other books our other two named imbibers also show, cause they have a madcap 20s romance vibe that was all kinds of kicks. And they cocktail a lot! As well as open bottles, as in the below quote (which doesn’t specific a spirit, but I’m taking it to be rye, as that seems their tipple of choice).
Drink?
Jake gasped, collected his thoughts. “Invariably.”
She laughed. “Reach into the side pocket. No – this side. I thought it might be a long, cold ride into town.”
Jake beamed approvingly at her. “There’s a certain Florence Nightingale touch about you that’s beginning to grow on me.”
She laughed again. “No glasses though.”
“Well,” he said, “you couldn’t have everything. It wouldn’t be fair”
He passed the bottle to her, watched admiringly as she tilted it up and drank deeply without allowing the big car to waver more than a little on the icy pavement.
