Although the Stock Market had crashed recently, it was too early for
most people to predict that the Great Depression was about to get
underway. For 39-year-old spinster schoolteacher Hildegarde Withers,
it's business as usual. And part of her usual business is taking her
class for an outing to the aquarium to see the penguins. Instead, she
spots the floating corpse of Wall Street broker Gerald Lester and
quickly realizes that Inspector Oscar Piper of NYPD Homicide isn't up to
solving this tricky case, especially when he appears ready to accept he
confession of an obviously innocent young man. Red herrings, not
penguins, abound.
Miss Withers has a number of questions that need answers before she's
willing to reel in the real murderer: Who did Lester's wife meet behind
the stairs? What did the pickpocket see? Who was the man in the fedora?
And just how did Miss Withers' hatpin turn into a lethal weapon?
First published in 1931, The Penguin Pool Murder was as big a hit with
book lovers as it was with moviegoers when it was filmed the following
year starring Edna May Oliver as Miss Withers and James Gleason as
Inspector Piper.
