#57: Who's Afraid? by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

 A cheery young woman takes a job as a traveling salesperson, and almost immediately finds herself surrounded by menace, in Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's Who's Afraid?

Our protagonist is calling on housewives in a small town, but quickly finds the husband of one of them dead along a path, with herself in the law's sights.  She tries to keep up her spirits even while a pair of young men--whose motives she begins to question--both vie to help her.

Stark House Press seems to be trying singlehandedly to bring Holding's work back into the public eye (she wrote from the 20s-50s), and deservedly so; she is a sharp, darkly funny crime writer.

I was very shocked to find an Ace Double with this on one side and her Widow's Mite on the other out in the wild on a camping trip, as her books are hard to find outside of Stark House Press reprints.  Unfortunately, I dropped it and my dog promptly peed on it.  I bought the Stark House Kindle version to finish it up.  

Credit where credit is due, when I posted about this on social media, Stark House Press sent me two more Holding books for Kindle, a welcome surprise.

I read this one quickly and enjoyed it; recommended for those who have yet to discover Elisabeth Sanxay Holding.

#53:The Unfinished Crime by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

An uptight young man, upon learning that a woman he is courting is separated and not divorced, reacts in a surprising fit of violence; then has an increasingly difficult time covering up his actions as well as controlling his new-found desires in Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's The Unfinished Crime.

A classic unreliable narrator in a noir that ratchets tighter and tighter, The Unfinished Crime is a tidy little thriller from an author whose work has been out of print for a long while.

This novel was part of an old-fashioned style mystery double, the other half of which I also read very quickly (and is reviewed below).  I consumed this in two days over Christmas break.

I have enjoyed what I have seen from Stark House Press and will recommend Holding's work to others.

#52: The Girl Who Had To Die by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

A fatalistic young woman brings a troubled young man to a weekend away visiting an affluent, debauched family with plenty of secrets in Elizabeth Sanxay Holding's The Girl Who Had To Die.

Holding writes with an especially feverish intensity and ratchets the suspense up almost from the first page. Although cloaked in the trappings of a family drama, this is a pretty tough noir featuring an unreliable narrator and an enigmatic ending.

This is my second novel by Holding after Lady Killer earlier this year and I feel she most reminds me of the great Cornell Woolrich, although Holding has, sadly, largely been out of print for a long time.  Stark House Press is trying to change that by bringing a lot of her work back, including this one I bought from them (a double with The Unfinished Crime).

Recommended for fans of classic noir.

#20: Lady Killer by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

A young woman marries an older man for his money, and soon learns this was an unhappy mistake; but on a cruise, she is distracted by another unhappy couple who seem more murderously inclined in Elisabeth Sanxay Holding's Lady Killer.

I see Holding's name a lot, but had never sought out any of her books until I made a vow to read only women authors in 2015, and found myself hungry for a good noir.

The protagonist, Honey, finds herself wound tighter and tighter in a dark web leading to a tense, ultimately downbeat conclusion; but what I enjoyed about Holding's writing was not only the crackling noir elements but the artfully rendered take on marriages, relationships, and friendships between men and women. I will definitely look for more of her work.

I found this for my beloved Kindle and read it quickly.