Emma Lou Fetta (1898-1975) was a native Hoosier, born in Richmond, Indiana, where she attended Earlham College, a Quaker educational institution founded in 1847. She became a journalist, a foreign correspondent, and the press officer for The Fashion Group, a nonprofit professional organization founded 1930 to promote the clothing industry and the women in it. This experience gave her great background for her three mysteries, published between 1939 and 1941.
Linda Matchett wrote an informative article about Fetta on her blog here:
http://www.lindashentonmatchett.com/2017/11/mystery-monday-elusive-emma-lou-fetta.html
Matchett describes them as cozies before such books were called cozies, and they do seem to follow the general requirements of that subgenre. Curtis Evans, crime historian, mentioned Fetta in his blog The Passing Tramp several times and he wrote the introduction to the reprints, included in the paperback versions.
Murder in Style (Doubleday Doran Crime Club, 1939; Coachwhip, 2020) introduces Susan Yates, a famous New York fashion designer, as she joins a committee meeting of fashionistas convening to plan a program for an organization that sounds a lot like The Fashion Group. Nancy Pierce, a dilettante jewelry designer who tried to dally with every man she encountered, thoroughly ruffled the feathers of the other committee members. When finally the group was focused and business was underway, Nancy was discovered unconscious. A doctor that the hotel rushed to the scene declared her dead. A suicide note was found nearby.
Enough questions about the death arose to bring Assistant Deputy Prosecutor Lyle Curtis into the picture and an eventual verdict of homicide was issued. Susan and Lyle team up to find the culprit. In time-honored cozy heroine style, Susan even goes to a deserted golf course in the middle of the night in response to an anonymous note. She did have the sense to tell her maid to call the police if she wasn’t home soon, but still.
A nicely constructed mystery with elements of an impossible crime, well thought out misdirection, and false leads. Susan Yates is an original character, typical of the unlikely amateur sleuth in cozies. Interestingly enough, there’s an air of timelessness about this story. Written in the 1930s, there wasn’t anything that overtly placed it then. It could have just as easily occurred twenty-five years later. The emphasis on professional women with careers furthers that perception. The absence of technology keeps it firmly in the mid-twentieth century, though. A pleasant contribution to the Golden Age canon and of interest to contemporary cozy fans.