Elizabeth Tebbetts-Taylor (1917-2001) was a U.S. author from the West Coast. Born in Oregon, she spent most of her life in southern California. She wrote film scripts, short stories, and novels. Her most well-known novel was Tarifa, published by Dell in 1978.
She seems to have written only one mystery. Now I Lay Me Down to Die was first published by Arcadia House in 1955 and reprinted by Coachwhip in 2020. Set in Los Angeles during Hollywood’s Golden Age, its characters include struggling actresses, grasping managers, conniving journalists, professional gamblers, a Native American private investigator, and a hardworking dress designer named Mira Hira. Mira started out in Chicago as plain Moira O’Hara, where her native business acumen and strong fashion sense established her as a source of exclusive designs. She married Ian Renwick and they decided to come to Hollywood to take advantage of the ceaseless demand for custom high-end clothing. Her perspicacity paid off, as her shop soon acquired a following of wealthy and temperamental Hollywood denizens.
One of the most volatile of her customers has arrived two days early for a fitting of a dress, and Mira and her staff scramble to find a way to stall her while they assemble the gown enough for her to try it on. Floren Lawrence, the well-known actress, has brought her manager and a friend from Las Vegas so they chat and drink cocktails along with another visitor or two until Floren announces she intends to nap for a couple of hours in Mira’s pleasantly appointed fitting room and then she will be ready to see her dress. This means of course that Mira and members of her staff must stay until after closing to accommodate her demands.
When Mira tries to awaken Floren hours later, Floren is dead. Mira calls the police who decide on the spot she was poisoned.
Anyone who had been in the fitting room could have dropped something in her drink but the gambler from Las Vegas knew the police would focus on him. He hired Joseph Pratt Miles, a Nez Pas Native American from Oregon, to investigate. He learned that Floren tended to collect information about people and hold it over their heads, a genteel form of blackmail.
As usual, I found the details about mid-century life of great interest. The extent to which tradespeople would accommodate the demands of their self-absorbed clients says just how much power Hollywood wielded. Organized crime involvement in the movie industry is suggested more than once. The police procedure is questionable, but the narrative moves briskly and the killer was well concealed. It’s really too bad that Taylor did not write more books about Miles. He is an original character, possibly reflecting Taylor’s youth in Oregon, and a thoughtful choice; an ethnic detective was not common during the mid-1950s.
Readers of mid-century crime fiction and those especially interested in Hollywood-based mysteries will want to add this book to their reading lists.