A Good Deal: Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red by Jacqueline Lynch.

A terrific mystery. A rarity for me: It's an e-book, the first I've read. I admit I'm not crazy about e-books - the whole idea, I mean. To me, a book has to be 'real' to exist. Online is not 'real' far as I'm concerned. But that's probably because I'm ancient and it's too late to change my ways. But setting that aside I went ahead and read Jacqueline Lynch's cozy set in the 40's, CADMIUM YELLOW, BLOOD RED. The book is available online for 99 cents for a limited time. I don't have a Kindle, but I downloaded the reading apparatus to my PC for free. (I'm not going to make a habit though, of reading books online. I'm still not sold.)

Elmer Vartanian is fresh out of prison after spending time for a museum heist. WWII has come and gone and Elmer is still feeling guilty over having missed his turn to serve his country. It's the end of the 1940's and life has moved on without Elmer's knowing much about it. There's television, copying machines, jazzy cars, ballpoint pens, elevated highways, well...you name it. Elmer feels like Rip Van Winkle newly awakened from a deep sleep.

His wife has died and his little girl, Linda, has disappeared. Desperate to find her Elmer is caught up in a plot to direct a heist of another museum - the upshot of it is if he cooperates, his long time friend Dave - caught up in the plot as well - will find out from the gang where Elmer's daughter is and pass on the information. So, for the sake of his daughter, Elmer is doing something he knows damn well cannot have a good end.

In the meantime, Juliet Van Allen, a young, rebellious society woman, daughter of an aristocratic type from an old Connecticut family works at the Museum in an administrative capacity. She is married to Kurt, an egocentric artist and has just been hit with two very unhappy surprises. Both involving her husband.

How these two characters get thrown together by fate (the initial 'meet' of these two is as inventive as anything I've read in a long time) and manage to keep out of jail, solve a murder , catch a killer and discover what has happened to Elmer's daughter is as good a way to spend a couple of hours as I can think of.

I hear that Jacqueline is thinking of turning this into a series. If so, I'll be there for another ride in that shiny maroon, Lincoln Cosmopolitan.

Cadmium Yellow, Blood Red by Jacqueline T. Lynch

I've just heard about a new e-book by fellow blogger and writer, Jacqueline T. Lynch and wanted to post a bit before I even read it. It sounds like something I'll really like, especially since the hero is named Elmer and there's a museum involved. (How could you NOT be inclined to like a hero named Elmer?) Read all about it at Jacqueline's blog, ANOTHER OLD MOVIE BLOG.

According to Jacqueline, CADMIUM YELLOW, BLOOD RED is a post WWII cozy about a museum heist, a missing child, a murder, a recent ex-con and an even more recent widow.

Sounds good to me.

And if you don't, like me, have a Kindle or Nook or whatever, you can still read the book on your computer screen which is what I'm going to do.