Edward Ifkovic

Run Cold is the tenth installment in the Edna Ferber mysteries. This one takes her out of her New York society milieu to the rough-and-tumble life of Fairbanks, Alaska, where she is conducting another research trip for her novel Ice Palace, a novel exploring the forces for and against statehood for Alaska. Ice Palace came out in 1958, a year before Alaska became a state and may have played a role in moving people to support statehood.

The real-life Ferber made five trips to research Ice Palace and our fictional Ferber is on her last trip, renewing her friendship with Sonia Petrievich, a local newspaper columnist who writes about Alaskan history and heroes. Or anti-heroes as she seems infatuated with the violent recollections of Jack Mabie, “The Meanest Man in Alaska.” Edna is repulsed, not attracted, by his boasts of murder and mayhem. When he is reunited with his old partner in crime, murder follows.

Interestingly, the secondary characters in Run Cold mirror the characters in Ice Palace. There is the young woman, Sonia, whose heart is sought by Preston Strange, a man representing the anti-statehood, resource extraction Bayard Husack of Ice Palance. Then there is Noah West, who seems to represent Ross from Ice Palace, an indigenous man who wants to safeguard the environment and people of Alaska. However, unlike Christina in Ice Palance, our Sonia is murdered perhaps because she came too close to the truth. Both Preston and Noah are possible suspects, but then there are many suspects, though it sure seems as though the murderer wants to frame Noah. It’s up to Edna to find out who killed Sonia, and why, or there may be a grave injustice.

I like Edna Ferber. She’s a compassionate woman with good judgment and a discerning character. She has no love of violence and murder. Her writer’s nose for detail makes her an able amateur detective. Run Cold is a fair mystery and while there are plenty of red herrings to suspect, the resolution does not come out of thin air. I was, however, a bit disappointed with how slow Run Cold was to start. Like Edna, I was sick of Mabie’s boasting and do not know why we had to have so many conversations with the evil blowhard.

The mystery did not start until over a quarter of a way through the book. There are a few murders in quick succession, but then the conversations that are our “investigation” are repetitive, running over old ground time and again. The story is competent but thin, and it felt stretched to the breaking point, trying to make a three-course meal out of a good entree.

I received an e-galley of Run Cold from the publisher through NetGalley.

Run Cold at Poisoned Pen Press
Mood Indigo Review
Ed Ifkovic author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2019/01/18/9781464211157/… (més)

It's 1904, and nineteen-year-old Edna Ferber is working as a "girl reporter" for the Appleton Daily Crescent, in the small Wisconsin town of Appleton. She's frustrated by the trivial nature of the stories she gets to report, and indulges her imagination and creativity in making the stories she can report as vivid as possible. While the publisher, aging Civil War veteran Sam Ryan, likes Edna, the new City Room editor, Matthias Boon, does not, and believes that females have no place in the newsroom.

Then Appleton's homegrown international celebrity, Ehrich Weiss, better known as Harry Houdini, comes home for a visit. Through a combination of luck and initiative, Edna scores the interview that Houdini originally didn't intend to give to either local paper. Boon's hostility is ratcheted up even further. Meanwhile, Edna can't escape from the stresses at work by going home, because she's in near-constant constant conflict with her sister Fannie, and her mother Julia is resentful and angry over husband and father Jacob's blindness which has forced Julia to take over running the family store, My Store.

When a beautiful young German-American girl, Frana Lempke, disappears from the high school and is found dead two days later, Edna finds herself drawn into the investigation. She knows the school, she knows Frana and her friends, she knows everyone involved. And of course, she is filled with imagination and curiosity that won't let her let go of it. And the deeper she goes in her investigating, the more the tensions at home and at work increase and threaten to come to a crisis that will force her to make major life decisions--if she doesn't become the next victim.

The characters are all compellingly drawn, not least Edna Ferber herself. Ifkovic set himself a risky task, making his viewpoint character and protagonist a young woman who will herself be the most famous and successful woman novelist of the first half of the 20th century, and he's pulled it off. I believe in Edna, her family, co-workers, and friends, and the little midwestern town they live in. Escape Artist works both as mystery and as historical novel, and is a delight to read.

Highly recommended.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.… (més)

This a black/white book, I mean the main colours are white, the snow/the sky, and black, the poors, the Depression. It shows how New York was before the New Deal and how the rich and the poor shared similar spaces but rarely met.
It begins as a comedy of manners more than a mystery, the high class settings with celebrities like Edna Ferber and Noel Coward. The mystery is on the psychological side, looking at hidden motivations and secrets.
It is really enjoyable and gives a lot of food for thought.
Very good and really recommended.
Many thanks to Poison Pen and Netgalley… (més)

Mood Indigo is Ed Ifkovic’s ninth installment in the series featuring the famed novelist and playwright Edna Ferber and her coterie of New York society friends, most importantly Noel Coward. In Mood Indigo, Ifkovic wonders what might happen to true love if the world is filled with Iagos. Edna first meets Belinda and Dougie, our Desdemona and Othello, as Noel Coward’s Christmas party. They are obnoxiously loud and with far too many public displays of affection. Glowering onlookers mention that Belinda is a fortune to fortune gold digger and sure enough there is an ugly confrontation with a former beau.

Edna might not care so much, but she comes to see Belinda perform and realizes she has a real talent. She glimpses moments of emotional honesty in Belinda’s face, realizing that she might actually love Dougie and be exhausted by his constant insecurities and jealousy. Dougie is a poor excuse for an Othello though. He’s a child of privilege and pampering who at thirty-five is still dandled on his mother’s knee. He’s never had to grow up and is grasping and demanding as a child. Complicating the plot, Dougie’s mother is a snob, though she denies it, and wants Belinda gone. Then there is Belinda’s brother, her Svengali who wants his own portion of her.

When she is murdered, Dougie is the obvious suspect, but Edna can certainly imagine a range of other suspects. When Dougie is murdered, it’s suddenly more complicated. Was it a simple robbery as the police think, which would allow them to keep Dougie in the frame for Belinda? Or was it revenge by someone who thinks Dougie killed Belinda? Or did Dougie’s killer also kill Belinda? Well, there’s no one better suited to find out than Edna Ferber.

This is the first I have read in this series and was not put off by it being out of order. I will likely read more in the series. There’s a wry wit I enjoy and all the name-dropping and cameos are fun. Of course, if you’re Edna Ferber, you’re not name-dropping, you’re the name that gets dropped, but still the rich and famous of the Jazz Age pass through with quips and little character portraits that are a delight.

The conflict and the murder in this book hang on the idea that men “own” women. The “If I can’t have her, no one can” idea permeates this book. It simmers with jealousy, romantic and professional. It’s not Ifkovic’s fault that systemic misogyny persuades men that only they have romantic agency, that a woman must reciprocate a man’s love. That is on us, not the author nor the characters. Still, it’s sad reading this book about an era nearly a century past and realizing how little we have progressed.

I received an e-galley of Mood Indigo from the publisher through NetGalley.

Mood Indigo at Poisoned Pen Press
Ed Ifkovic author site

https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/01/08/9781464209413/… (més)