Best 1943 Adventures (1)

By: Joshua Glenn
June 8, 2018

One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1943 adventure novels. Happy 75th anniversary!

Vera Caspary‘s mystery-romance thriller Laura.

Mark Macpherson, a rising star in New York’s police department, is offended when he’s reassigned from fighting organized crime to solving the murder of Laura Hunt, a successful advertising exec… but as he gazes at a portrait of her, and reads her rags-to-riches diary, he begins to fall in love with her. So who shot Laura in the face with a shotgun? Was it marketing executive Shelby Carpenter, the victim’s unfaithful fiancé? Several characters narrate the novel, including Laura’s former lover, the narcissistic author, socialite, and newspaper critic Waldo Lydecker; and a stenographic record of a statement to the police by a man who was with the victim right before she died. There is a big plot twist. What Macpherson ultimately discovers is that high-society New York is much more corrupt, amoral, and brutal than the Gotham he’s been policing… and that a smart, strong woman trying to get ahead in a man’s world is playing a dangerous game.

Fun facts: Originally serialized in Colliers from October to November 1942. Laura was adapted by Otto Preminger in 1944; the movie, starring Gene Tierney and Dana Andrews, has been called the greatest noir romance.

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Best 1943 Adventures (1)

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