Great Detectives by Otto Penzler

Author:Otto Penzler [Penzler, Otto]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6640-3
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road
Published: 2012-07-31T04:32:00+00:00

Mark McPherson

Vera Caspary

VERA CASPARY’S LAURA IS one of the rarest of literary gems—a classic recognized as such from the first by its readers. Curiously, critics gave it lukewarm or mixed reviews upon publication, but quickly reversed themselves to applaud it.

Three characters dominate the action of the novel, which is presented largely from their points of view: Laura, the enigmatic and romantic beauty of the title; Waldo Lydecker, the epicene columnist who loves her; and Mark McPherson, the unusual, sensitive detective who falls in love with the ethereal Laura as he investigates her murder. His eerie, haunting passion marks him as a character destined for immortality but doomed to a single volume. Vera Caspary chose to write no more of his pursuits. Indeed, after Laura, any further case would have been anticlimactic.

Vera Caspary has written dozens of original screenplays and stories on which motion pictures have been based, notably Les Girls, Letter to Three Wives, I Can Get It for You Wholesale, The Night of June 13, Easy Living, and the excellent Fritz Lang thriller, The Blue Gardenia. Among her eighteen novels are Bedelia, Evvie, Stranger Than Truth, The Husband, The Weeping and the Laughter, The Dreamers, The Rosecrest Cell, and Elizabeth X.

In addition to Dana Andrews’s memorable portrayal of Mark McPherson in the 1944 film, the romantic and idealistic hero has challenged other actors. Hugh Marlowe appeared in the 1947 Broadway drama (which had a modest run), and Robert Stack was McPherson in Truman Capote’s television adaptation, in 1968. Miss Caspary remembers that production as “an abortion.”

Born in Chicago in 1899, Vera Caspary Goldsmith now lives in New York City’s Greenwich Village. She married producer I. G. Goldsmith during her long stay in California.

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